


The Seal Lullaby

by quantumoddity



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Loving Marriage, Sea Monsters, Selkie Alex, Selkies, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-11-02 06:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 88,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: In small, isolated, tight knit towns, people tend to talk. And in this town, they talk most about the strange couple that live down in the cottage by the sea. They talk about how they just turned up out of the blue one day, they wonder if they'll ever stop having children, they wonder what it is about them that makes them feel so...odd.-Eliza finds something unusual down on the beach after a strong storm.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alex/Eliza Selkie AU, based off one of my favourite myths and my favourite characters. Multiple chapters, updated on Thursdays. Comments and kudos would just be the best!

Eliza Schuyler had always been a girl who had one foot in some other world.

She was a ‘daydreamer’. She was always ‘away with the fairies’. She was ‘never quite there’. The ‘lights were on but no one was home’.

There were a lot of ways to say it, most of them dripping with honey sweet condescension that making the obstinately gentle phrases feel a little off, more like thinly disguised insults than anything else. They were muttered to Catherine Schuyler by friends and book club members and distant relatives in just enough of a low voice to make it plain that they didn’t want Eliza to hear but didn’t care that she absolutely could. To make it obvious that they were pointing out a serious flaw but in a delicate way that the girl should really be grateful for.

Eliza was never fooled. She knew exactly what they were saying; that she was strange, weird, an anomaly. That the way she went wandering on long, lonely, meandering walks for hours was unusual. That the way she could sit perfectly still and placid, like some eerily glass like lake, perfectly content inside her own head, made her odd. That the way she devoted herself more to the worlds between the pages of books than the one she physically occupied made her seem disjointed and distant.

But she couldn’t have cared less than if the musty, oddly dressed figures in the antique paintings scattered through the Schuyler mansion had begun wittering about her behind their hands. Eliza knew that this world, this life where everything her parents did had to be carefully calculated and considered for how it would ripple through the political and social circles they swam in, it just wasn’t where she belonged. Her older sister Angelica, one of the few people who understood and appreciated Eliza, apparent flaws and all, had learned to adapt. She found that she could easily navigate the complicated maze that was a life at the centre of the New York political scene, she was born to cut her path through the city with her wit and her charm and her brains. Even Peggy, her younger sister, was warming to it, she liked a life of risk and challenge and god, was the life of a Schuyler a challenge. But Eliza had learned very early on that she wasn’t supposed to be here. She preferred things clear, honest, genuine. She liked to know where she stood and know exactly who she was, she liked softness and calm and clean air. And none of that was here. Here things had to change a hundred times a second, the ground was always shifting underneath everyone’s feet.

Of course, Eliza made her peace with it, she’d had to or spend the rest of her life dissatisfied and she hated any kind of confrontation, it was so unnecessary. But there had always been a part of her that had felt like it was waiting. Though for what, she wasn’t quite sure. For  _ something _ , for the world she was supposed to be in to come and find her.

She’d almost given up, as her twentieth birthday came to pounce on her and her parents started making noises about settling down, about finding a partner, finding a career. Internships and apprenticeships, whatever the hell ‘networking events’ were, battlegrounds and arenas to find a job that involved a glass panelled office and a mahogany desk and spreadsheets and market research, a husband that involved painfully polite dinners, loaded comments over breakfast and very quiet, formulaic sex. Eliza saw all of this coming and began to panic, seeing no way out before it all came crashing down on her head and drowned her. Her  _ something  _ still hadn’t found her; her lifeline was nowhere in sight.

And then, on an otherwise decidedly unspectacular day, it found her.

Or rather, she stumbled upon it. Nearly tripped over it, as a matter of fact.

Eliza had been going crazy cooped up inside the beach house. So, when the storm finally passed on and some weak sunlight began filtering through the thick, cloying grey clouds and the wind calmed from a furious howl to a vaguely irritated murmur, the instant the weather got over its days long tantrum, she was out of the door. Driven to the brink of insanity having no power, trapped between four walls with her parents constantly needling at her how she really should be attending Mrs Washington’s party next week, it would be useful for her, very beneficial; drowning them out by wishing with all her heart that Angelica hadn’t left on her honeymoon three days ago and Peggy hadn’t wriggled free of the family’s yearly beach vacation with pleas that her finals were coming up. As soon as the storm died down, she kicked back her bedcovers, pulled on some ratty old jeans and a threadbare brown wool jumper, her ever faithful scuffed, clunky boots and ran outside before either of her parents could snag her with a pointed remark. She didn’t even bring a coat, she wanted to feel the cold mist of the morning and the slight wind against her skin.

Eliza felt all her troubles begin to dissipate to some far corner of her mind, almost as soon as her boots began to crunch the dark, pebbly sand and the shore came into view. Everything was grey and cool and a little damp and that was exactly what she loved about it. The landscape looked as if it had been painted by some melancholic artist and Eliza could empathise with them. This was where she wanted to be right now, somewhere that made her shiver and squint a little and just feel a little more alive than she’d felt in a while, alone with the waves sighing against the shore and the breeze gossiping quietly as it ran through the long grasses.

And it was when Eliza was just wandering in blissful aimlessness on that freeing morning, on the beach that was quietly steeling back down after a storm, that she nearly tripped over the rest of her future.

She’d been nudging away all the pieces of driftwood that littered the shoreline to make herself a path, wanting to stick as close to the water as possible so it lapped at the base of her shoes. And some of the bigger scraps, the ones that maybe had once been part of a building, maybe someone’s home or a mighty ship, they required a bit of a kick to send them back into the waves and on their way to another shore. So Eliza made a bit of a game of daydreaming where these slabs of aged, salt worn driftwood may have come from and once been in another life as she nudged each one out of her way. It was a lot of fun actually…

Until one of the pieces of driftwood yelped when she kicked it.

There was simply no other response to that than to scream loud enough that it echoed all along the foggy beach and to pitch backwards onto the soggy sand. Which is what Eliza did, falling back on her butt and scrambling away, her dark eyes wide and terrified, anticipating some attack from the creature from the black lagoon. They’d find the careworn boots her mother had always hated on the beach that night and that’s all they’d have of her to bury…

But it wasn’t a monster. At least she didn’t think so.

The shadow she’d just unceremoniously kicked rolled, unfurled and sat up. It was a boy. A young man except…even in the first second she looked at him, in the mist, there was a second where she refused to believe he was even human at all, he looked like something from another reality in a way that was imperceptible but so obvious it was like the difference between up and down. And then the mist cleared as the young man began to hack and cough and wheeze, sounding terrifyingly sick and very normal. Eliza gasped and saw him clearly for what he was, a muscular but lithe man of what must be exactly her age if not very close, amber skin dappled with droplets of water, long dark hair plastered to his head almost all the way down to his shoulders, sharp features, long nose, high forehead and the most intense eyes she’d ever seen. It was those eyes that convinced her that the brief moment of unreality hadn’t just been a dream, that for a split second he really had appeared to her as something unknowable even in the oldest, dustiest, most worn tomes of myth and legend. But now all he was just a scared, cold, shivering young man, looking at her with as much fear and awe as must be in her eyes too. Like she was something odd and strange.

She also realised in that moment that he was completely naked. And making no effort to hide that fact. In the split second before she went bright red and made a point of fixing her eyes on his face, she noted that the hair that ran across his chest and muscled midriff and down to…other places was as dark as the hair on his head. The hair that was forming along his jaw into what would eventually become a goatee once he matured a little, tipped completely from adolescence into adulthood.

Eliza blinked slowly, the stunned silence between them stretching on and on until eventually she just squeaked, “I’m sorry I kicked you.” It seemed like the most appropriate thing to say at the time.

The young man blinked back, almost like he was mimicking her movements. He didn’t speak.

“I…were you swimming? It’s kind of cold out…” Eliza tried, wincing a little at her own awkwardness.

That seemed to get some response, there was recognition in those pitch-dark eyes and Eliza found that once she looked into them it was almost impossible to look away again. He nodded, a surprisingly assured nod for a guy that was butt naked and soaked on a freezing cold beach.

“Well, you’re brave,” Eliza commented, slipping into her habit of talking plainly and directly, whatever the situation, “Swimming right after a storm.”

Another response, that word storm seemed to shake something in him. Bad memories it seemed like, he looked suddenly cowed and afraid.

Eliza felt a dart of sympathy, “Did you…did you get caught in the storm?”

Of course, he’d been lying here amongst the driftwood, just like he himself was some of the flotsam and jetsam that the ferocious weather had displaced and kicked around for its own amusement. There was another, slightly sadder nod of confirmation.

She had made up her mind. Eliza was one of those rare people whose immediate response to anything was unflinching kindness and she wasn’t about to leave this poor guy naked and clearly borderline hypothermic. She got up, dusted the sand off the seat of her jeans and offered him her hand.

“Come on, you look like you need a hot drink and a blanket. I’ve even got some clothes you can wear, I think.”

He looked at her open palm with a mix of apprehension and curiosity for a long time.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise,” Eliza bit her lower lip, “I won’t even tell my parents, you don’t have to worry about them. You can trust me.”

He fixed his dark eyes on her- the ones that Eliza’s mind had decided looked like the blackest sea glass- and he nodded again. He did trust her, she could read it on his face.

As he took her hand and used it to haul himself up on shaky legs, as his unnaturally icy cold skin met her unusually warm skin, it was like a spark passed through them. A small but undeniable charge that made both sets of eyes open wide and both jaws drop slightly and both hearts beat a little faster. Neither of them could put a name to it, to the feeling that suddenly flooded both of their chests, but they were both so aware of it that it was as if it coloured the world. Like they could suddenly hear even the soft rustlings of the kelp way below the waves, see the individual particles of dust carried on the wind, smell the delicate scent of the tiny but hearty flowers that grew in the sea grass. Everything was suddenly  _ more.  _ That was the only way it could be rationalised.

“My name is Alexander.”

It took Eliza a moment to realise he had even spoken. But who else could that voice have come from; that voice that was lyrical and a little sharp with an accent that came from a place Eliza had never seen but also, somehow, knew she could never go to.

“Oh. I’m…I’m Eliza,” she answered, her own voice sounding shaky and breathy and unsure in comparison.

But the light that came on in his eyes when she said it. Alexander looked like he had never heard anything so beautiful.

The fact that he wasn’t fully human was so obvious that Eliza’s brain somehow just accepted it with no fuss. It was clear as day in the way he walked, like Bambi on ice, like the concept of getting around on two skinny legs was completely foreign to him. In the way, he kept touching his arms and running his hands through his hair and poking his stomach like he didn’t fully get that they belonged to him. The way he looked surprise at the sound of his own voice, like it startled him.

So there was something about him, that much was clear. What he was could wait, Eliza had the patience to just file that away until more immediate problems could be addressed. Like how exactly she was going to smuggle a very undressed Alexander into the Schuyler beach house, get him a shower and clothes and a hot meal without either her mother or father seeing. Because this was something she absolutely did not want to have to explain. Not just because she had no idea how but also because she felt a kind of possessiveness over him. This was what she had been waiting for, the confirmation that she wasn’t a freak or wired incorrectly, that she’d simply been in the wrong place up until now. Her parents had had their chance to understand, they’d refused. So Alex was hers and no one else’s. Plus, who know what they’d do with him, who they’d hand him over to. Eliza was not letting go of him, no way. She’d promised to take care of him.

Fortunately, her parents were still asleep, with it only being around seven in the morning so as long as they were quiet she should be able to sneak him into her room without too much trouble, he’d be safe there until…until she figured out where to go from there.

Except for one thing. Alex didn’t seem to really  _ do  _ quiet.

As soon as they walked through the door, those eyes snapped so wide until they took up most of his face, his jaw going slack with such childlike wonder it was a little startling. He was suddenly seized with a compulsion to touch everything like all of this was completely new to him. This didn’t combine well with his uncertain, clumsy movements; by the time Eliza had managed to herd him into the kitchen, he’d nearly knocked over the television, the ceramic vase, the side table.

The kitchen was even worse, the young man was like a hurricane. Eliza turned her back once to get a mug to make a hot drink and in seconds he’d knocked over a whole tray of cutlery as he’d tried to reach the vase of flowers on the windowsill. By some miracle, there was no movement from upstairs.

“Dude!” she hissed, pushing on his back to move him away from the carnage, trying to decide if she was more bemused or exasperated, “You’re going to wake up my parents!”

“Oh!” Alex only seemed to brighten at that, turning quickly so Eliza suddenly found her palms pressed to his damp chest. So much so she could feel the muscles rippling underneath his skin like living stone. She retracted her hands, fast.

“So, you live with your pod?” he chirruped as she waved him over to stand by the counter.

“My…my pod?” Eliza blinked in confusion, pausing as she went to hurry to the laundry room to fetch him a towel.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, apparently not seeing her puzzlement, “How many of you are there? Are they all like you? You said your parents, do you have brothers and sisters too?”

She was a little taken aback, he asked questions with the rapid pace and animated curiosity of a small child at a museum, “Oh. You mean my family?”

Alex shrugged, “I guess.”

“Well, it’s only me and Mama and Papa here right now,” Eliza answered, busying herself with foraging in the laundry pile for the biggest towel she could find for him, “But I do have sisters. Two of them.”

“Wow, really?”

Eliza jumped a mile, in the blink of an eye Alex had somehow crossed the distance between them to stand right behind her. Apparently, personal space was another thing he just didn’t  _ do _ .  

“Um…yes,” Eliza hurriedly passed him the towel, biting back a slightly exasperated sigh as he looked at it in confusion for a few heartbeats before swinging it around his shoulders, looking to her for approval. She showed him how to tie it off around his waist.

“That’s really lucky,” there was a very obvious wistful note to Alex’s voice as he trotted at her heels back to the kitchen, like he was eager to see whatever oddities she had to show him next.

Eliza looked at him as she got him down a can of soup from the pantry. Soup would help warm him up, he was still so bitterly cold she was starting to worry.

“Do you not live with your family?” she asked delicately.

He shook his head, looking a little morose, “No. It was always just my mother and me so after she died I was just on my own.”

He looked so small and lonely in that moment, Eliza was struck with a sudden urge to hold him. Fortunately, she caught it and pulled it back before she could look like a complete weirdo.

“I’m so sorry,” she said instead, meaning it.

“Fisherman got her,” Alex looked down at his bare feet, avoiding her gaze for the first time since they’d met, “They were after me, wanted my pelt but she…she put herself in between them so I could get away.”

Eliza’s jaw opened and closed a few times. That was an awful lot of information to just offer up to a stranger. And not a lot of it made sense. There were certainly more than a few words that hit her ear wrong, that jarred in the context. But they could wait.

So, what she did was she reached over and took his hand, squeezing it tight and firm in just a kind of ‘I’m here, you’re not alone’ gesture. Eliza was a firm believer that there wasn’t much such a gesture couldn’t solve.

It certainly seemed to work for Alex. Though startled at first, like consoling touch had become a little foreign to him, she soon felt his long fingers wrap around hers in turn and the raincloud that had settled over his face lifted a little.

It had gone entirely by the time Eliza had him wrapped up in one of her father’s roomier sweaters, it hung off his slim frame like a flag on a windless day, sat cross legged up on the counter top with a bowl of chicken soup in his hands that he was devouring like it was the first food he’d seen in days. As soon as he’d gotten past staring at himself in the silvered surface of the spoon in fits of delighted giggles, he’d fallen on the soup like he was ravenous; it had only been two minutes and the bowl was nearly empty. Eliza sat opposite him, watching him with a calm, curious eye, trying to start sifting through some of the things about him that made no sense.

She wasn’t having much luck.

“Here, you try!” Alex was holding out the bowl to her again, he’d done that more than a few times. Despite his obvious hunger, he was determined to share with her, “It’s so good, it’s amazing!”

“I’m okay,” she smiled softly as she gently pressed the bowl back towards him, finding his insistence sweet, “I made it for you.”

That seemed to satisfy him for now, he went back to eating with as much gusto as before.

“Alexander?” Eliza piped up after a few more moments of oddly companionable silence.

His dark eyes flickered upwards, fixing on hers with no embarrassment or flinching away.

“Eliza!” he seemed to enjoy just saying her name, he was taking every opportunity to do so. In his accent, his strange sharp tone that only made Eliza want to hear more of it, her name had a beauty to it that even her low self-esteem couldn’t deny.

“Where did you come from?” she decided just to be straightforward.

“Oh, from the sea,” he answered easily, nodding his head and wiping his mouth on the sweater’s sleeve, “I wander around a lot, started off up near Scotland but then I kept going further south because, y’know, without a pod I wasn’t doing so well with the cold and all that?”

Eliza didn’t know, she didn’t know at all, but she nodded all the same. This kid sure loved to talk, once he opened his mouth it was clear in his voice there were no plans to stop.

“But then there was that storm, did you see it! Flung me all over the place, I thought I was going to die. I got caught right in the middle of it, I didn’t even have time to brace myself. I was so scared, blacked out, then the next thing I knew, I had your boot in my ribs!”

Eliza bit her lower lip, “I’m still sorry about that. I thought you were driftwood.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Alex honestly couldn’t look much happier about that fact, “I’m glad you did. No one’s ever been as nice to me as you. And I’ve never spent any time as a human before, it’s cool. Weird though, how do you stay up on just two feet? And I’m freezing, there’s no fur anywhere! Expect down here I guess, small mercies…”

Eliza’s breath caught in her throat, “W-wait, so…so if you’re not human…then what are you?”

For her, that question was a heavy weight, something loaded and tense and crackling. But he answered it like she’d just asked him what his favourite colour was.

“Oh, I’m a selkie?” he shrugs, “Sure, I guess you didn’t recognise me without the pelt, huh?”

That word had an edge of familiarity to it, like she’d read it somewhere in a story book before, a long time ago back when such ideas had enough magic to make them seem like possibilities. But it had no place here, here in reality, here on the cusp of adulthood?

“A…selkie?” she tried to get her mouth around the word and fumbled.

Alex nodded, “Yes. The seal people. A skin changer.”

“Oh,” Eliza wasn’t sure what to say to that. Because of course it was the truth, that wasn’t what she was finding problematic, that wasn’t the pill that got stuck in her throat. The problem was what to do about it.

“Except now I’ve lost my skin,” Alex sighed, putting the bowl down and running both hands through his salt stiff hair in distress. He looked like someone who’d just had a horrible realisation and was now spiralling, like some awful thought had just pounced on him and sunk it’s claws in, “I let go of it in the storm and now I don’t know where it is. And I can’t go back to the sea without it.”

Eliza fixed on this, this sounded like something logical that can be easily fixed. A problem with a clear and cut solution, unlike what to do with the fact that there were apparently creatures that could switch from seals to humans as easily as shrugging off a coat.

“If you just let go of it, it will probably have followed the same path,” she patted Alex’s knee reassuringly, “It can’t be too far away. I’ll help you find it.”

Physical touch seemed to relax him, he started to settle as soon as her warm palm rested on him. The temperature difference between them was still very obvious. It was slowly dawning on her that maybe Alex just ran a little colder.

“Maybe not today,” her mouth twisted worriedly, looking at the clock on the wall, “You might need to lay low today.”

Alex tilted his head, trying to follow her gaze, mimic her movements like he was taking all his cues from her.

“You look exhausted,” Eliza nodded, “Are you okay with just sleeping in my room while I fib my parents off as much as I can? I know it’s not ideal, I’m sorry, I’ll come up and see you every chance I get but I can’t have them finding you. As soon as it gets dark and they go to bed, we’ll go look for your…your skin.”

The implicit trust in his eyes was disarming, borderline terrifying. Like he’d follow her to the ends of the earth without too much questioning. Eliza had to look away after a few beats of it, close to being overwhelmed just by that honesty. She just couldn’t face it.

And more than she could face the fact that, if asked, she was starting to feel like she’d follow him too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza and Alex stumble upon something down at the beach

Eliza found, over the next few days, that it was actually a little alarming how easy it was to hide a stowaway right under her parents’ noses. They apparently just didn’t question it when she suddenly disappeared to her room for hours at a time, claiming she had some scraps of homework still left to do when really, she was helping Alex build himself a little nest out of blankets and sheets; he seemed to find it impossible to sleep unless he was in a tight, enclosed space. They just shrugged and believed her when Eliza hummed casually that oh, she must have been mistaken, maybe they didn’t buy ice cream after all. When in actuality, Alex had eaten pretty much two cartons by himself in the space of an hour, his eyes wide and more awed by the taste of double chocolate cookie dough than they had been by anything else in the human world. It was quickly becoming clear that junk food was his weakness, what had started off with Eliza sneaking him some Doritos to cheer him up because he was looking a little morose had blossomed into a full obsession that left her wondering how she was going to throw out all of those wrappers and empty packages without arousing suspicion.

Junk food may have been top of Alex’s list but books came a very close second. She’d offered him full use of the little library that sat in the corner of her room here at the beach house, looking a little weak in comparison to her vast rows and rows of shelves at home but it may as well have been the library of Alexandria to her new friend. Within the first day, Eliza’s jaw had dropped when Alex proudly told her he’d read every one and did she have any more, those were so good, especially maybe some more ones about all the different animals, that one was amazing, was she  _ sure  _ that there were really these things with super long necks and spots because that just seemed crazy…

Her parents also apparently didn’t pick up on how tired she was getting, how she was nearly falling asleep at the breakfast table or nodding off as they watched TV on an evening, almost as if she wasn’t getting any sleep at all.

Which, of course, was the truth though her parents never seemed to put two and two together. They never even suspected that, as soon as they went to bed, Eliza was pulling on the warmest clothes she could find and sneaking out onto the beach with Alex (who never seemed to need anything more than a t shirt and shorts, despite the chill of the night). With a flashlight, they combed every inch of the beach for Alex’s pelt, searching amongst the sharp grasses to see if it had snagged there, in the rock pools to see if it had collected in one of the puddles, becoming a temporary home for the tiny crabs and delicate starfish. They even strayed further off the beach than Eliza had ever been, right the way over to where the familiar stretch of sand became a cliff face with its defences of jagged rocks and caves that seemed to be full of nothing but thick darkness, where they had to time every movement carefully and make desperate runs between pockets of sand before the waves came crashing in to snag their ankles and pull their feet out from under them. Eliza could feel her heart pick up to a worrying pace every time they found themselves over this way.

Alex had no fear at all, ploughing on with a fierce kind of determination and focus that he never had at any other time. He dove into tight caves that Eliza stepped back from, shaking her head, and risked very near misses with the waves that held god only knew how many riptides and currents and scrambled up the cliff faces, not even flinching as footholds crumbled away underneath him and he nearly went pitching onto the rocks. Eliza tried to call him back, fear bubbling in the pot of her stomach, but either the wind whipped her voice away or Alex just didn’t care. More than once Eliza had been left shivering and wide eyed with worry on the sand, counting out the seconds in a shaking voice, praying frantically in her head until she saw him reappear and she could breathe again.  Every time he came back with disappointment writ across his features, the look of a person who was aware of time running out, places left to look becoming fewer and hopes growing thin.

Four dawns had chased them back to the house for a quick, hurried breakfast (usually of chicken soup; Alex didn’t understand the conventions of human mealtimes, he only knew what tasted good) and as much sleep as could be stolen before Eliza’s parents came knocking on her door to tell her to get a move on or was she planning on sleeping the whole day away? And still they had no pelt to show for their searching.

On the fifth unsuccessful return, when Eliza offered to make him some food, Alex just shook his head and mumbled that he was tired. His shoulders slumped and everything about him seemed wilted and mournful. He didnt even change out of the clothes he was wearing, apparently not caring that they were soaked and stiff with salt, he just crawled into his makeshift blanket fort and curled up, hiding his face.

Eliza sat on her own bed, her heart aching for him. The fact that they’d known each other for less than a week seemed like the most insignificant thing in the world; she felt closer to him, this strange, animated, curious boy, then she had to anyone else in her life. It was like the spark that had travelled between them the first time they’d touched had locked them together somehow. Like when he hurt, Eliza hurt too.

She could hear him then, the quiet, mournful little sniffling sound that brought tears prickling to her own eyes and that made up her mind. She came to the entrance of his tent and whispered softly, “Alex?”

She got only a damp sounding grunt in reply.

“Can I come in?” she whispered, “It’s okay if you don’t want me to but…I’m here?”

There was a long moment and then Alex’s voice, sounding very far away and ever so slightly confused, “You can come in.”

It was a bit of a squash with the two of them in such a small space, they found themselves in a bit of an awkward tangle, noses almost bumping together, Eliza’s legs across Alex’s, his head pillowed on her arm by necessity, so close that all she could smell was the slight tang of salt and fresh air that she was starting to realise was just Alex, it was part of him. Something about it felt like home to her.

“Why did you ask if you could come in?” Alex murmured, his voice much flatter than usual, with a bitter edge that sounded a lot more cutting in his accent, “I’m in  _ your _ house. I’m  _ your _ stowaway. Your…charity case.”

Eliza winced, seeing the shame and disappointment on his face as he used a phrase that was clearly unfamiliar to him but he felt its truth. Something drove her and she took his hand in her own, winding and locking their fingers together.

“Because it’s your space,” she told him gently but sincerely, managing to meet that searchlight gaze of his unflinchingly, “And you’re welcome here, Alex, you know that. I want to help you.”

It was Alex who looked away first this time, for the first time. A slight blush flared up across the angular valleys of his face, “Why?”

There was desperation in that one word, like it was something he’d been wanting to ask for a while now but had been too afraid of the answer that would come at its heels.

Eliza squeezed his hand, making him start ever so slightly, “Because…you need help and you’re my friend. I want you to get back home, I’d hate it if anything took me away from where…where I belonged.”

It was a lie.

Eliza knew that, she could taste it, she could feel it as the words stuttered and started in the small space between them, the soft warm glow of her bedside lamp through the bedsheets around them that made it feel like they were bathed in some ethereal light. The lie felt jarring in such warmth. It felt wrong.

The truth was right there behind her words, jostling at the back of her teeth like it was irritated at being shoved aside. No, she’d love it if someone took her away from this, this life that. she was only starting to realise since that morning on the beach, she despised. This life that made her feel so unsettled and so wrong, like a cartoon character spliced by some animation fuck up into a period drama. This was where she belonged according to all the facts and realities she’d ever known but it was killing her.

But this paled in comparison to the other seething lie; the idea that she wanted him to get back home. Of course, she didn’t. She’d only known this strange young…not even a man, this creature…except that felt too inhuman, too raw. Alex wasn’t like that, he was warmth and laughter and bright smiles and curiosity and saying her name with a kind of reverence that made her blush. Alex was life, he was everything she’d been missing.  _ He  _ was where she belonged. And saying goodbye to him now, watching him swim off back into the waves, back to a whole other world she’d never know, pulling them apart and reopening the divide between them that one freak storm had allowed them to accidentally cross. Eliza didn’t know if she could do that, it was going to break her heart.

She was going to have to, of course. What else was she going to do, keep him in her room for the rest of their lives? Smuggle him back to Albany in her suitcase? Build him a blanket fort in the corner of whatever high rise or brownstone in which she ended up avoiding her future husband who looked like he’d been factory assembled? As much as it hurt her, Alex needed to go where she couldn’t follow. She could see it in his eyes as he gazed at the sea from her bedroom window, in the way he’d pace at the shoreline during their nightly search parties like some magnetic force was pulling him back out there.

Eliza sighed softly as she looked into his dark eyes and saw waves crashing there. She knew she couldn’t ask him to fight against that, no matter how many lies she told herself.

“Thanks, Eliza,” Alex whispered, a small smile flickering across his face as he freed one arm to wipe at his eyes.

Despite all of the complicated emotions inside her, Eliza smiled back at him and she meant it. All she’d really wanted was to see him happy again. She could ignore the clouds gathering in her own mind; she’d always been good at that.

“We’re really friends?” Alex narrowed his eyes, his smile turning playful, “Do most people make friends by kicking them in the ribs?”

“You are never going to let that go!” Eliza hissed, giggles bubbling up as she swatted at his head making him retaliate by swinging a leg over her and going for the ribs, ticking furiously with deadly accuracy.

A fierce and quiet battle raged for a few minutes which ended with them dissolving into laughter, even more knotted together than they were before, tangled impossibly in the blankets.

“Of course we’re friends, idiot,” Eliza sighed fondly, catching her breath, “Don’t doubt that.”

His smile was so wide it made the corners of his eyes crinkle up a little and that held such a fascination for Eliza it scared her more than a little.

“Hey, um, seeing as this is my space…” he repeated her phrase carefully, “Can I ask you to stay? Sleep in here with me instead?”

Eliza realised just how close they were in that moment. In more ways than one, it felt like.

“Sure thing, I can stay in here with you. Scooch over,” she slid down beside him, making them a little more comfortable. It was actually very nice, having each other’s warmth and the safe closeness of the sheets overhead and the gentle light. It felt like an oasis for just the two of them, like everything that had been worrying them had to stay outside. In here, they were safe and they’d built it together.

Though it wasn’t like Alex had ever felt the awkwardness growing in Eliza’s chest like a weed. He seemed impervious to such things, shameless in an endearing and sort of reckless way. It came from having been alone so long, she guessed. So, he wound his arms around her and pillowed his head on her chest, wrapping his legs through hers, cuddling into her like it was the most natural thing in the world. And after a few heartbeats of pause, Eliza cuddled right back because maybe here, in this moment, it could be.

Eliza was straddling the line between asleep and awake, her brain foggy, but she distinctly heard Alex’s low, gravelly murmur, “It’s been so long since I didn’t have to sleep alone.”

He sounded so…grateful. So much that the melancholic weight it carried hurt a little. Eliza had no answer for him but to hug him even tighter, trying to put the promise she couldn’t make, the promise she couldn’t even let herself think, into that contact.

If she’d tried to say it out loud, if she’d tried to find the words, who knew what would have come spilling out. That she felt it too, the vulnerability of sleep in the arms of someone you trusted and truly understood. That she’d never felt so safe as she did in his arms. That she didn’t want him to leave, she didn’t ever want to leave this tent.

That, despite the almost impossible distance between them, despite the fact that they’d only known each other a few days, she was falling in love with him.

Eliza wasn’t sure what she’d thought Alex’s sealskin would look like.

She’d been picturing something more than a little grim, something tatty like rotting seaweed, something she’d been scared to touch. She’d never actually seen a seal up close? What exactly were you supposed to expect for an ethereal item that allowed shapeshifting between species?

She definitely hadn’t been expecting it to be so  _ beautiful. _

Eliza was the one who found it, she was always the one that searched further up the beach on the grasses and stone fields; Alex seemed anxious to stick to the shoreline. It was caught on the taller ammophila, hidden from the sea’s view in the valleys and slopes and rolls of the dunes. The storm must have thrown it back there like it was a trailing scarf on a light breeze. It certainly looked light enough to carry that way, it was almost translucent in the glare of her flashlight, like something spun and weaved. But at the same time, it looked oddly alive, animated, like the way the wind lifted it was actually its breathing, an unsettling trick of the eye.

It did look like seal skin. It was grey and dappled, holding depths of deeper blacks and blues, an impossible number of shades held within its surface. The fact that it was covered in fur was almost imperceptible, the hairs were so fine and translucent. Clearly it was built for speed and power Eliza couldn’t even imagine, the fact that it wasn’t of this world was obvious. Eliza was simultaneously afraid to go anywhere near it and compelled to run it through her fingers, wanting it and fearing it in equal measures.

It was a little like how she felt about Alex.

Eliza was entranced for a moment but the shivering in her own limbs brought her back. It was a particularly cold and wet night, rain hanging in the air like it was trapped on cobwebs. And she’d finally found what they’d been looking for. All she had to do was call for Alex, he’d be so happy, he’d be able to go home…

Eliza felt a chill grip her chest that had nothing to do with the weather. A thought grew in the back of her mind, something insidious and cold and bitter that she couldn’t ignore. As much as she was ashamed by it.

She didn’t have to tell Alex. He never came back here in the sand dunes, he was so far away. They’d yet to search the same space twice. He’d probably never come across it. Or she could take it herself, hide it away, he’d never find it. She’d never have to face that sickening moment where she watched him go, held him for the last time, watched those dark, intense eyes leave her life forever.

Eliza shook herself, wincing away from the thought, pushing it away with all her strength. She couldn’t do that to him. If leaving was what was best for him, then that was what she was going to do. That was what she wanted. It had to be.

“Alex!” she raised her voice over the wind, scrambling up the dune until she could see him, getting the legs of her favourite pair of sweatpants soaked in the spray, “Alex, over here!”

The roar of the wind was fearsome that night but Alex’s ears seemed oddly attuned to her voice, he turned and waved at her excitedly. She motioned him over, trying to set her face in a smile, trying to look happy.

Alex’s joy and relief to have his skin back helped, Eliza had no choice but to smile as he gasped and ran to take it in his hands with all the emotion of someone being handed back their left arm.

He stroked it against his cheek, feeling whole again as the constant anxiety in his stomach settled a little, “You found it! You found it, you got it back for me!”

Eliza wrapped her arms around herself, her expression soft, “Just like I said. Told you I’d make up for tripping over you. And for making you wear my pyjamas.”

Alex laughed, looking almost painfully happy, like it was constricting his chest, “You actually did it. I can…I can go back…”

The triumph and celebration suddenly flickered out and died. Alex stopped his excited bouncing, freezing as his hand closed around hers to pull her into his dance, spin her around. But instead they both stalled, eyes catching on each other, no sound but the wind and the waves.

“Um…” Alex looked shyer than she’d ever seen him, sudden coyness flooding over him like he didn’t want to face whatever was coming next but it couldn’t be stopped, “I guess I can…um, thank you for everything you did for me. That doesn’t even come close to covering it but…”

Eliza understood, she could see him struggling with words to describe this. She couldn’t blame him, it wasn’t like they made greeting cards for this kind of situation.

“You’re welcome, Alex,” she replied faintly, “I…meeting you was…”

She was suddenly blinking very hard and fast, an uncomfortable prickling building behind her eyes. She prayed he’d think it was just the wind. By the way he suddenly dropped her hand limply, she didn’t think so.

Another moment stretched between them, like currents were pulling them further and further apart, if they didn’t act soon it would be too late.

“Do you really want me to go, Eliza?” Alex murmured, his eyes wide. He clutched the skin to his chest like a child’s safety blanket. He had the look of someone who’d asked a question they knew might get them in trouble, it had just slipped out when they weren’t watching carefully enough.

Eliza swallowed hard, hugging herself tightly, “Well…”

Another lie made itself known, climbing intrusively up her throat. It would be so easy to open her mouth and let it tumble out but…Alex was being honest with her. Why couldn’t she do the same with him? Didn’t she owe them both that?

“I’m going to miss you,” she admitted in a small voice, “I’m really, really going to miss you, Alex. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Well no, you haven’t,” Alex snorted, teasing.

Eliza rolled her eyes though his joke did ease her tension a little, it made her think that she could say anything to him and not be afraid. “I mean I’ve never met anyone- human or otherwise- like you. You just understand me. No one else has ever managed that.” She gave a dry laugh that sounds unnatural and forced even to her.

Alex blinked, “Well, yes? Of course?”

Eliza narrowed her eyes, he was looking at her like she was missing a vital part of some puzzle she hadn’t even realised she was trying to do, “What do you mean?”

“We’re mates,” Alex explained slowly, tilting his head in that odd but sweet way he did, “I’m your mate. You’re my mate.”

She got the sense that he didn’t mean that in the way she knew. The way he said it, it had a different weight in his hands.

“Mates?” she murmured, feeling the power of it herself, confused by it.

Alex nods, his face saddening, his shoulders hunching a little, “Bonded. Soulmates. Selkies mate for life, you know as soon as you meet them.”

Warmth flooded Eliza’s chest as she tried to process this, as this unfamiliar concept that somehow described exactly what she’d been feeling fell into her lap. It felt like she’d known it for a long time but had simply forgotten. Alex was just helping her remember.

And still doubts tangled around her ankles and tripped her.

“But I’m not…I’m not like you, how can I be your…” she stammered.

“It’s happened before, it’s in the songs and stories,” Alex wilted even further, “But if you don’t want to...I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry, I should have kept my mouth shut. Stupid, it’s just stupid. I’m probably wrong, I mean, when our hands touched and…and  _ that  _ happened I was sure but-”

The pace and pitch of his voice was rising, his hands in his skin tightening and twisting. Panic was overtaking him; his skin was turning a grey colour and he looked ready to bolt. She couldn’t let that happen.

Eliza reached over, taking his hands. In doing so, she brushed his skin for the first time almost unthinkingly. Yet again she felt that charge between the two of them that she now had a name for, that pull. The sensation of the rest of the world slowing down around them even as their own heartbeats began to race and every sight, sound and smell became so much more real and almost uncomfortably close. Alex’s eyes widened, his lips parted a little.

“Eliza?” he breathed.

“I feel it too, Alex,” she gripped his hands tightly, “I promise I feel this too, I understand!”

As strange as it seemed, as many problems as this realisation threw up, they began to laugh. Mates. Mated for life. This idea ran through Eliza’s mind restlessly as Alex’s chill, calloused hands came up to cradle her face in the sweetest and gentlest gesture. It felt only natural as their lips came together, as her hands answered his own by resting on his shoulders, standing on tiptoe so she could press against him even more intently. No fear or hesitance, it was just the two of them. Eliza could almost swear they were surrounded by the warm glow of their safe space, back in her bedroom.

They had to pull apart for air but the light stayed, the feeling of everything somehow being okay in spite of all available evidence. They grinned at each other in bewilderment and joy, moving apart no further than they absolutely had to. Eliza ran her fingers across his skin, it was so incredibly soft and light, like nothing she’d ever felt before.

All of this was unlike anything she’d felt. It was all so new, dizzyingly so but she found she actually liked being a little out of her comfort zone. If Alex was the one waiting for her at the other side of it.

Eliza bit her bottom lip, “But I can’t go into the sea with you. If I could…”

She knew she would. She honestly would. But that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t have a skin like his, she was grounded in a way he wasn’t.

Alex shook his head, a frantic kind of hope in his eyes, “I don’t care. Eliza, I’ll stay here. There’s nothing for me out there without you.”

Eliza opened her mouth, relief and horror warring on her face, “Alex, you can’t. You…this isn’t…I can’t ask you to give up everything, your home…”

Alex gave a derisive snort, “Eliza, listen. All I have out there is loneliness. Fighting for every inch, having to constantly keep on the move so all the shit I’ve done doesn’t catch up to me. I’m so tired, Eliza, I was so close to giving up until I met you.  _ You  _ are my home.”

There were still so many questions and hurdles to cross. Her parents. Her planned future. She was in the midst of stepping off the path she’d been on for years, drifting away into god knew what, there were going to be consequences for that choice.

But right now, she didn’t care. Alex didn’t care.

They would just have to let the storm carry them. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promises are made down at the beach

For years, people in the village had tutted and shook their heads over the folly down by the beach, one of the slowly disintegrating and weathered cottages that were always found in little towns like this. In such a tight knit and curious community, often forced into close quarters in the bar or the diner or the café by the habitually bad tempered weather, such things were well thumbed conversation topics. They called it a waste, an eyesore, a pile of rubble that should have been swept off their coastline a long time ago or at the very least turned into something useful.

But of course, if it had, what would they talk about?

So, it was an expected but still odd twist of irony that when the young couple of strangers turned up and actually started rattling around in the old house, it caused more suspicion and exasperation than relief. Though the potential for grumbling conversation in the church hall was frankly delicious. Though now they muttered sullenly, chewing over who these two could possibly be, they looked like they were barely out of school, nothing more than kids really. And how on earth did they get the money to fix up that old place, the work it must be taking to make it habitable didn’t bear thinking about. The noise alone of them sawing and hammering and scraping was ghastly, must be scaring all the wild birds away. And lord above only knew what they were doing sleeping in the back of the banged up old car they’d arrived in, apparently until the cottage was complete; that was  _ much  _ too close of quarters for some of the older residents’ liking.

The whole situation just reeked of something suspicious and would clearly come to nothing good and someone should probably do something.

But then the two of them started coming into the village, ransacking the thrift store for furniture, obviously, nothing short of delighted with their haul of chairs, a table, a sofa, a bed and more bookshelves than could ever possibly be needed, none of it matching in size, shape or colour. They also bought food, kitchenware, some clothes more suited to the weather than the ones they’d arrived in, candles and matches because apparently, the power wasn’t working just yet. The second-hand bookstore they hit with the most savagery, buying just short of more books than could be carried. The need for the many bookshelves became quickly obvious. The couple blew through the town, building themselves a ramshackle, patchwork life of random antiques, oddities and well-loved cast offs that ended up having an undeniable charm and warmth to it, all in the space of a Saturday afternoon.

The shopkeepers who witnessed their scavenger hunt all congregated in the same corner of the bar that night and all reported the same thing to a rapt audience. Despite the general air of downright peculiarity that surrounded them, the two seemed like a genuinely sweet pair of young folk, a lovely couple.

They all described the girl as very pretty, with a sweet soft face, an easy smile and a general friendliness that led to everyone who encountered her finding themselves in a companionable chat within two moments. She asked questions and listened well, her musical laughter often making an appearance. They all told of how she consulted lists and checked things off, cooed appreciatively over homemade preserves and cakes and wall hangings, brought a light and brevity with her everywhere she went. And she’d paid for everything without a moment’s hesitation.

Eliza was how she’d introduced herself. Eliza Schuyler.

The lad who accompanied her they all agreed was …an odd one. Sweet. Funny. Animated. But most definitely strange. They passed around stories of how he became fascinated with an antique globe at the thrift store, spinning it around with seemingly infinite devotion, eyes bright as he took in the carefully painted surface. He’d nearly cried with joy when Eliza had asked if he wanted to buy it. The proprietor of the store also suspected that he was the reason the two had left with a stuffed weasel, a rocking horse and a large glass ornament as well as the essentials. The grocer was slightly concerned, claiming that she’d witnessed him put a whole floret of broccoli in his mouth, nearly keeling over and spitting it out immediately as Eliza apologised profusely. By that point, Eliza and the grocer were sharing cups of tea as she taste tested her homemade marmalades so all was forgiven quickly. His most glowing commendation came from the old bookshop owner who’d fallen in love with the pair of them over the three hours they’d spent in his store. For all his eccentricities, the boy had known Shakespeare’s sonnets like the back of his hand and had been eager to discuss them and their potential interpretations at great length. And still, he’d had a smile and an enthusiastic handshake for everyone he met, his rapid and clever talk charming almost everyone.

He’d given his name as Alexander. No last name.

What was also agreed upon was how good they seemed to go together. Their youth was troubling but they had the rapport of people who’d been married for decades, finishing each other’s thoughts and actions, moving in some kind of unspoken synchrony, keeping perfect beat with each other like it was as natural for them as breathing. They were a little shameless, kissing lightly and taking hold of each other’s hands, wrapping arms around waists and lips brushing necks, exchanging loving gestures easily and simply, just because they could. While a little disarming, it was lovely to watch.

So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, then, them setting up in the folly, turning it into a home for themselves. They certainly seemed nice enough. There were still a lot of unanswered questions though such as where they’d come from, where their money had come from, what they were planning on doing now they had their unusual little curiosity shop of a home.

But hey. At least they would give the villagers something to talk about.

“Alex, is this straight? I can’t tell from here” Eliza had to raise her voice to call to him from the kitchen, pinned as she was to the wall, trying to wrestle one of the large posters they’d fallen in love with at the antiques store into submission. Given that it was a pretty damn sizeable copy of Nighthawks, it was proving to be easier said than done.

She heard the quiet pad of his footsteps behind her. He always moved so quietly and quickly, it had taken her quite a while to get used to it, to stop nearly hitting the ceiling in shock as she found him suddenly right at her shoulder when he’d previously been across the room. But she was getting better, settling in to sharing a life with him, adapting to his quirks and habits. Granted, given that he wasn’t exactly human, she was dealing with a little more than most would.

“Right side needs to go up a little,” Alex informed her, sounding like he had something in his mouth. Which wasn’t a surprise, his metabolism seemed to run a lot faster than hers, “No, wait, that’s too much…”

Eliza followed his careful instructions until she heard him chirp, “Okay! Perfect!”

With a sigh of contentment at a job well done, she hopped down off the sideboard and was planning on pulling him into a hug. Instead, she found herself stopping dead and giving a small yelp of laughter.

“Alex! Baby, what did I tell you about clothes?”

Alex looked unbothered, crunching on one of the chocolate chip cookies Eliza had made and regarding his decidedly naked body, “What about ‘em?”

“That generally? People wear them. At most times of day, a solid ninety nine percent, I’d say,” Eliza snorted with laughter.

“But I don’t see the point,” Alex slipped into his commonly used, playfully argumentative tone, “It’s just strange, I’m not cold so why would I cover up?”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation, coming and resting her hands on his chest, “There’s other reasons to wear them. Call it societal convention.”

“Not where I come from,” Alex correctly pointed out, gesturing at her with his half-eaten cookie, “And I get your point about when we’re in town and stuff, I’ll accept that, even if I don’t really get it. But it’s just you and me here! This is our territory! So, what’s the issue?”

Eliza opened and closed her mouth, annoyed at how he was such a good debater after only a few weeks spent being human, thrown off by the adorable little slips of the tongue he still made, “I’m just saying. It’s irregular.”

Alex’s face cracked into a lopsided grin, “ _ I  _ am irregular!”

“Can’t argue with that,” Eliza said fondly, pressing a kiss to his cheek, “Now come on, naked or not, you’re helping me unpack.”

They were getting along quite well under Eliza’s natural organisation. The sea of cardboard boxes had gradually dwindled to a lake, then a river until now there were just puddles that needed mopping up. It was doing wonders for her soul, building their home out of abandoned items and pre-loved junk and recycled odds and ends. She’d been happier in the last few days, sanding down the edges of the bureau and gluing the teapot back together and putting the doors back on the wardrobe and making scavenged doorknobs make peace with the wrong doors, covering every available surface in fun, bright, hand painted patterns and doodles. She hammered and sawed and replaced and matched, Alex proving himself very useful, quickly picking up the idea of aesthetics and artistry despite the fact that there was never much call for it under the waves. Eliza had always loved creating and making things, giving things new purpose and helping them fit together in new ways and now she found herself undergoing a similar transformation. As she patched up the holes in the sheets and brought the scraps of a few different materials together into a functioning set of curtains, she would run her thumb across the slightly wonky lines of stitching and feel similar marks on some deep part of herself, the signs of something broken and tattered being made whole again. Except some of the patching, most of it in fact, wasn’t her own handiwork. It was Alex’s.

Everything in the little cottage was mismatched, nothing was designed to go together, by all laws of fashion and design it was a travesty. But somehow it worked. All the scraps and patches came together in just the right way.

Eliza rested her head against Alex’s chest. She did that a lot, the sound of his heartbeat, just faster than a normal pace by enough of a margin to feel off and unusual, it soothed her. Grounded her. When the sun came down and those creeping doubts made themselves known, living in between her ribs and coming skulking out and weeping plaintively that she’d made a mistake, what had she done, running off with a psychopath who claimed to be from another world? They reminded her of how her mother had cried, the tense set of her father’s jaw as Eliza had explained that she was moving, she was leaving. Dropping out, packing up her stuff and leaving, just like that. There had been raging and yelling and pleas to her sanity that must have rocked the beach house. Alex certainly heard it from halfway down the beach, she’d been able to tell that much in the anxious tear tracks he had tried to wipe away before she saw. But through it all, Eliza had just taken deep breaths and told them the truth; she wasn’t trying to hurt them, she didn’t hate them, it wasn’t their fault. And it wasn’t. They loved her sincerely. They’d tried to give her the best life possible. It was just that their definition of what the best life was varied just a little bit too much from Eliza’s. She’d tried to explain all this as she’d outlined her plans to go back to Albany, pack up as much of her stuff as would fit into her car and just go. She promised to call and write often, she promised she was being safe and she’d find a job, she’d be okay. But whether they’d understood or even heard her over all the yelling, she didn’t know. She hoped it would eventually sink in for them, after the initial shock died down.

In all of it, Alex didn’t come up somehow.

The sour little voices whispered all this to her, forced that scene to play out in front of her eyes over and over. And when it was dark outside and cold and misty and the wind seemed to take offence at their depriving it of the chance to blow the folly right off the hills, retaliating by rattling the weakened windows and making the shutters bang and crash, it was hard to fight those thoughts off.

But then there was always Alex. There was always his unusual heartbeat thumping soothingly against her ear. There were always his wiry arms wrapping around her. There were always the escaped wisps of his long hair tickling the bridge of her nose. And in those moments, Eliza would be sure she had made the right decision.

Tonight, was no different. Eliza was wrapped up in one of the baggy University of Chicago sweatshirts she’d stolen off her sister and nothing else. Alex had been persuaded into shorts and a t shirt, mostly by Eliza commenting how cute he looked in them. The fire was going, chattering away by itself in the hearth, their cups of tea were cooling on the floor by the couch. Eliza was simply daydreaming, using Alex as a cushion while he devoured one of their latest purchases from the bookstore. The scene was so perfect, so picturesque, that Eliza was very annoyed when her phone went off, shattering the quiet expertly. That is, until she picked it up and saw that it was her sister Angelica.

She’d been fielding a lot of calls from her sisters recently as they mediated the fallout between her and her parents. She felt sorry for them, having to take on such a hard and thankless task but it had to be done. That was family. Eliza had done her fair share when a certain eldest Schuyler had eloped with her graduate student boyfriend of two months. Even that storm had eventually calmed, which gave her hope for her own.

Though, in fairness, John Church had been a twenty-nine-year-old English aristocrat wastrel with a sizeable estate and trust fund and an affable charm, generous spirit and deep love for Angelica, once you sat down and talked with the guy. Which was a far cry from a shapeshifting Selkie.

Eliza rolled her eyes at herself as she answered the phone, “Hey, Ange.”

“Eliza,” Angelica was still feigning anger at her sister, even when they both knew it was nothing more than bewilderment and exasperation, “Still hanging out in the ass crack of nowhere?”

“It’s pronounced Oregon, actually?” Eliza hummed, smiling wanly, “But yes. Still.”

“No chance you’re going to come to your senses?” she just about heard her older sister’s shoulders slump, “It’s such a shit show over here. I’d say you’re teetering on the edge of still forgivable.”

Eliza winced a little, “They will get over it. They will.”

Alex’s eyes flickered over to her face, she felt him tense underneath her.

Angelica clicked her teeth, a sure sign that she was getting frazzled, “Eliza, you were always the good one. You’ve really thrown them for a loop here, you were their golden girl.”

That made Eliza frown, “I wasn’t. I was just the quiet one that didn’t argue back. Except now I am. Ange, you always knew I wasn’t cut out for all that.”

“Is that all it is?” Angelica’s voice grew a little strained, “Are you sure you’re not in trouble? Hon, you know there’s nothing we can’t fix. If you don’t want mama and papa involved, I get that but I’m always here.”

Eliza realised what she was doing to her older sister. Angelica had always taken such pride in knowing that her siblings came to her with every problem, relied on her like a fairy godmother to soothe any ache with coffee, hugs and witty advice that held both smiles and wisdom. She’d seen them through botched exams, doomed crushes, Peggy’s hair dye disasters and Eliza’s grief for her pets.

And now Eliza had jumped ship without telling her biggest supporter. Angelica wasn’t just scared for her sister or angry at her for causing a family turmoil. She was hurt.

Eliza softened her voice considerably, “I know that, sis, I really do. And I’m really sorry but I’m still figuring out how to explain this. As soon as I know, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

“That isn’t reassuring me, Eliza!” Angelica’s pitch was skyrocketing and Eliza knew for certain that, if there was a hard surface in her sister’s vicinity, she’d be rapping her nails on it.

“I know,” Eliza felt Alex’s hand come up to stroke her hair, sensing that the conversation wasn’t going very well. It helped considerably, “Um, look…it’s a little like your situation, okay? There’s a…a guy.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause from the other end of the line, Eliza would have feared the connection dropped if the tension wasn’t so palpable.

“Eliza…” Angelica’s tone was warning.

“It’s nothing dangerous!” she hurried to pull her sister’s thoughts back from terrible places, “He’s called Alexander, okay? He’s sweet and kind and gentle and I love him. It’s just that mama and papa wouldn’t  _ get  _ it.”

Alex pricked up at the sound of his name, his hand stalling on her hair.

There was another pause but this one was more relaxed, Angelica just absorbing and processing this information, “Alexander…there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Eliza cursed her apparently omniscient sister, “Yeah. But…it’s not the kind of thing I can explain over the phone. You can come down and see if you want, you and Peggy. Maybe…maybe not mama just yet.”

Alex’s hand was shaking, she could feel it.

“Believe me I will,” Angelica muttered, “And if I can even the slightest hint that you’re in any danger…”

“I know, I know,” Eliza cut her off tiredly, “You won’t. If you see, you will understand. I promise.”

Promises between Schuyler sisters were something almost tangible, something serious. They were never, ever made lightly.

“Surely you can understand, even a little?” Eliza lowered her voice, pleading a little.

“I…suppose so,” Angelica relented, if a little sourly, “But I’m going to have questions.”

“Naturally,” Eliza sighed, “Listen, you know exactly where I am, I’m not hiding. I’ve even got a job, I was talking to the nice lady who runs the tea shop, her brother is the principal of the local school? Their third-grade teacher is about to retire and they can’t get a replacement, I’m meeting with him tomorrow morning…”

Angelica couldn’t keep the wry smile out of her voice, “Who said you couldn’t network, eh?”

“I learned from the best,” Eliza was relieved by the little joke, she really was forgiven then.

“Well, I’m appeased but not satisfied. I’ll be down there soon, okay?”

“I hope so,” Eliza smiled, meaning it, “Love you, Ange.”

“Love you too, Liza. Stay safe.”

She gave a genuine sigh of relief as she put the phone down, getting to return to her peaceful little corner of the world. Angelica would forgive her. Peggy already admired her sheer balls more than she was bothered by her decision. So, there were no troubles there, she knew her sisters.

Her parents would be a different story, that outcome was still uncertain. But Eliza had known there was going to be some price to pay, the happiness she’d managed to find would have felt insincere if there hadn’t been some cost.

Still, she didn’t have to like it.

She realised then that Alex was still tense. As she craned her neck to look at his face, she felt her heart twist. He wasn’t good at hiding his emotions, not in any sense, so his fear and anxiety were sharply clear on his expression. He needed help, she knew that in an instant.

Eliza twisted out of his grasp so she could be the one holding him instead, “Baby? Alex, it’s okay, it went well.”

“She’s coming here,” Alex murmured faintly, not meeting her eyes, “Your sister.”

Eliza closed her eyes briefly. Maybe that had been stupid of her to say but there’d been no other way to shrug off Angelica. She certainly should have discussed it with him first.

“I…not any time soon, she’s busy but…yes. Eventually,” she relaxed her hold on him, anticipating him pulling away.

He didn’t but his voice grew more strained and he drew closer to one of the dark, mournful moods he was accustomed to. If Selkies had any concept of anxiety attacks, he’d have a word for it, maybe he wouldn’t be so scared of his own emotions. Eliza had been trying hard recently to help him with that.

“She’ll see what I am. She’ll know, she’ll hate it, she’ll take you away from me…”

Eliza’s heart dropped fully and she pulled away so she could look into his eyes, through the tears there.

“No, Alex, I promise. Not my sister, she’ll listen to me,” Eliza tried to soothe him, to let her certainty ground him.

Alex just whimpered, looking unconvinced, his pupils darting around, scared and agitated.

“Alexander!” Eliza pulled his focus back to her with a firm half cry to silence his panic. Once his chest stopped heaving and his shoulders relaxed a little, she stroked her thumbs across his cheeks and murmured in a much gentler tone, “You can trust me, Angelica and Peggy won’t hurt you, they won’t interfere. They…well, they’ll probably guess that something is up but once they see we’re happy together, that will be enough for them.”

“It will?” Alex’s voice was small, his eyes begging her for reassurance.

Eliza nodded, smiling gently, “It’ll all work out, Alex, I know it will. Trust me.”

He swallowed hard and nodded slightly, leaning into her touch, “I do.”

That was enough to give her no choice but to kiss him, the simple and beautiful thing that was having the trust of the person you loved. Alex kissed her back with equal enthusiasm. After a few beats, his hands rested lightly on her hips, hers slid upwards into his hair. She moved forward so her chest pressed against him, her hips met his in a simple, wordless question. He answered by gently tumbling them down, onto his back with her entangled against him.

Their first time hadn’t been in the most romantic of settings, the back seat of Eliza’s car the first night they’d rolled into town. It had been a lot of fumbling and wandering, giggling as their lips met and bumping into each other, clothes thoughtlessly pulled away. But the moonlight had shone on Alex’s back, the window was cold as Eliza’s feet had planted against it, their breaths had misted and melded into one in the air. And it had been perfect.

But now they had space and warmth and time, seemingly endless stretches of it. And Alex and Eliza made full use of it, learning so much about each other’s wants and needs in such a short space of time, falling into it every night; Alex’s appetite seemed to stretch to other areas too and Eliza felt like someone who’d never tasted pomegranates in their life but had woken up in an endless grove of the richest and juiciest. Their bodies just seemed to fit together as naturally as the rest of their lives did in such a beautiful way that they both often found themselves with tears in their eyes when it was over and done.

But there would always be another time.

Right now, Alex was inviting Eliza to take the lead. It had been him the first few times; though he shyly confided that he’d never known anyone else in that way before her, it was more openly discussed and celebrated among Selkies than it was with humans who’d picked up the concept of shame somewhere down the line. . And god, the things he could do to her. She was more than happy to surrender to him. But now Eliza was familiar and hungry and wanted to take the reins sometimes, which Alex was utterly delighted by.

She kept her lips pressed to his, delighting in the coolness of his skin, as her hands roved his body, following the curve of his narrow hips. He had such an endearing awkwardness to his shape, probably the result of having one foot in two very different species. Eliza took great joy and pride in thinking there was nothing in the world quite like her Alex.

She pushed his shorts down his legs, finding him half hard and ready, beautifully responsive as always. She grinned and swept her jersey over her head in one fluid motion, going from clothed to not in an instant. Alex’s jaw still slackened a little and those gorgeous eyes of his always got a little wider at the sight of her body, even now when he was as familiar with it as his own. She was just too beautiful, the way he felt when he looked at her and knew she was his, she wanted him, he’d only ever come close to feeling that on those rare occasions where he’d been swimming, catching the current just right, soaring, turning on his back and looking up at the night sky through the surface of the water and felt perfect freedom.

Eliza decided she wanted to have all of him too, just as he had all of her. He helped her pull off his shirt and send his shorts tumbling to the floor. Every motion that brought them closer resulted in Alex’s lips pressing against her skin, any part he could reach, with a kind of reverence but there was force behind it. Eliza’s collarbone was peppered with faint but discernible marks by the time Alex was naked.

She returned the favour, kissing him deeply as she lined up their bodies and guided him inside her so her high, wild gasp as his full length breached her was muffled against his mouth. The chill of Alex’s skin extended to parts other than his hands, their bodies joined with a clash of temperatures that drew low groans from both of them and spurred them both on to keep going. Alex’s movements were powerful and graceful not unlike someone who was underwater, perfectly fluid and well timed to some swell and pull only audible in his own head. Eliza was helpless in moments, riding him with less finesse but every bit as much drive, working to undo him and succeeding. They strung each other along and pulled back and raced forward in a jarring, powerful rhythm, drawing it out until it was almost painful. Alex unwound first, gripping her hips so hard there would be marks for her to marvel over before they went to bed, his heat flooding into her and tipping her over the edge in turn. She screamed his name, he was too seized to do anything but roar, but the result was the same.

They came down from their peak slowly, collapsing and gasping against each other, eventually laughing once they found the breath to.

“I love you,” Alex mumbled in between their lazy, blissful kisses.

Eliza purred happily, winding her arms around his neck, “I love you too, baby.”

The fire was still going strong, it would burn into the night if they let it. So Eliza made a decision; she couldn’t bear to let Alex go for a moment so they were going to sleep here tonight. Alex chuckled as she pulled the surprisingly soft tartan throw rug they’d picked up over them, catching on to what she was doing, thinking it a fantastic idea.

They fell asleep easily after a mumbled exchange of more ‘I love you’s and ‘goodnight’s, the embers imprinting their tangled shadows against the low stone walls of their home.

 

Summer was fast slipping through their fingers and Alex was determined not to let it go completely without one last night on the beach.

Eliza wasn’t about to argue with him. Her new job started in two days and she wanted to spend an evening forgetting how nervous she was, she wanted the opportunity to think about nothing else but the steady rhythm of the waves and how soft the sand was underneath her.

So, Eliza made some pasta, something with a lot of vegetables in it, continuing her crusade to wean Alex off his initial diet of Oreos and cheese puffs with the occasional bowl of chicken soup. He wasn’t complaining too much, he kept telling her that whatever she made for him it would be miles better than years and years of nothing but cold, raw fish. Eliza supposed he wouldn’t be in the mood for sushi any time soon. They took their bowls out on the sand, curling up together on one of the many blankets they owned and enjoying just sitting side by side and watching the sun sink below the horizon line. After a while, Alex pulled her head into his lap so he could wind his fingers through her hair in a loving gesture that brought comfort to them both.

But, from this vantage point, Eliza could read his expression clear as day. And it unnerved some deep part of her. His eyes were fixed on the rocking, timeless rhythm of the waves with a kind of wistfulness and fascination that made her want to hold onto his hands fiercely and cling to him, just in case he started to slip away. Why she should feel like she was in danger of losing him, here in such a perfect moment of closeness, she had no idea. But still, she felt it.

“Alex?” she said quietly, hardly loud enough to be heard over the waves breaking on the shore but still, he turned to her.

“Bestey,” he replied warmly, fondly. He’d been playing around with different nicknames for her over the past few weeks, trying and testing different terms of endearment and affection to see what felt right. Some, she imagined, were rooted in his heritage; she’d never heard any human call another ‘my anchor’ or ‘my firm tide’ or ‘my current that carries me home’. She liked the sweet, playful shortening of her name that he seemed to have settled on, liked the way it sounded soft and buoyant in his voice.

“Everything okay? You look…” she struggled for the right word, eventually settling on, “Distant.”

For a moment, he looked like someone who’d been caught out. There was a flash of guilt in the depths of his eyes but it was gone before she could really pin it down, “I was just daydreaming.”

Eliza let the worry drop from her hands, he didn’t have the look in his eyes anymore and the anxiety it had given her was fading. She didn’t much fancy chasing after it, not when they were having such a lovely time.

Alex piped up, “You know how you were telling me why the café lady and the library lady wear those rings on their hands?”

“Because they’re married to each other,” Eliza nodded, Alex asked roughly a million questions a day about human life but that wasn’t one she’d been expecting to resurface.

“Yeah,” Alex nods, “I remember. And you said people got married because they loved each other and that was a way of telling everyone about it.”

“Sure,” Eliza smiled. He never forgot anything she told him, his mind was like a lake that didn’t seem to have a bottom, always more space for new facts and titbits of knowledge which he collected with the fervour that magpies collected shiny objects.

“Well, could we do that? Could we wear rings and be married and I’d be Mrs Schuyler?” he asked, a little hopefully.

“Mrs is for women,” Eliza chuckles gently, “You’d be a Mr.”

“Oh, right. Mr Schuyler,” he corrected himself, nodding, “But could we? Because it’s like mating, right, and we’ve done that? This seems like the human version. So we should, right?”

Eliza couldn’t help the laughter bubbling up in her chest, “Why, Alexander, are you proposing to me?”

“I think so?” he giggled too, always finding her laughter infectious. 

Young girls were supposed to wistfully wonder about the day they were proposed to, Eliza thought, but she didn’t suppose any of them would expect something like this. Or be so delighted with it.

She sat up so she could cradle Alex’s face in her hands as she gave him the deepest and most passionate kiss she could manage. He responded in kind almost immediately, tasting lemonade on her tongue, the kind of sugary, uncomplicatedly delicious flavour he’d only ever found on dry land. It tasted like the idea that something could exist for the sake of its own beauty and pleasure, that there could be happiness and contentment without cost. It was a lot to take away from just the scent of lemons and sugar in a kiss but Alex nothing if not complicated.

“Although…” Eliza murmured, little creases taking shape as she thought intently.

“What?” Alex lifted an eyebrow, faltering slightly. He’d taken the kiss as a pretty firm yes?

“No, no,” Eliza scrambled to soothe his worry as fast as possible, “Of course I want to, I absolutely want to. It’s just that getting married needs…um, papers? And ID and stuff and records and birth certificates. You…you don’t have any of that?”

Alex’s face fell a mile, “Oh…”

This was starting to feel like yet another thing from her world Eliza would never have, all because of him. Like her parents and her old home and her old friends, a relationship she could show off proudly to other people rather than having to dodge and improvise, yet another thing she was going to have to sacrifice because of him. He loved her so very much, he just wanted to show that in every way he could, he wanted every title and trinket and honorific there was to make it clear he was devoting himself to her. Such things just didn’t exist in his old life but they did out here and he just wanted to do this  _ properly. _

Eliza sat up, shifting the sand underneath them and bringing him back to her. She looked at him with fondness and warmth, one hand still gently resting on his cheek.

“Alex,” she sighed, “Don’t worry. The only thing that matters to me about all that ceremony is the promise, y’know? And we have that! We have that in  _ spades!” _

“In what?” Alex tilted his head but his smile was slowly creeping back onto his face.

“I mean…okay, here,” Eliza reached down the front of her sundress, searching. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath; she and Alex had decided to entertain themselves as the food was cooking and finding wherever her bra and panties had been flung afterwards hadn’t been top priority. So, it was easy for her to retrieve her necklace.

It was a simple but beautiful thing, like all the jewellery Eliza wore, bought from an antique store in France on some hazy, blissful summer vacation years ago. She and her sisters had disappeared in there to escape the heat and she’d found the silvered pendant in the shape of a paper sailboat, like the kind children made to float across ponds and puddles. Finding it had been like discovering some wonderful treasure or relic and she’d worn it nearly every day of her life since then.

But now she swept it off her neck easily and fastened it around Alex’s. It rested in the valley of his chest like it had been made to lie there.

“Okay,” she met his eyes, her voice breathless and excited, “I, Elizabeth Marie Schuyler, promise to love you, Alexander, for the rest of my life and share everything I have with you and look after you when you feel ill and protect you…and hug you when you’re sad? And…and let you watch those dumb sitcoms you like and not laugh when you wear odd socks…” she broke off as she started to laugh, running out of domestic declarations of love, deciding to finish with simply, “And give my heart only to you. Forever and ever.”

Alex blinked back tears and fought against the closing of his throat, smiling deliriously back at her. He looked down for something to offer her in return, he wore no jewellery, he had no possessions that weren’t shared with her anyway. Hell, he was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts with a hole in the crotch.

But then he knew.

“I’ll be right back,” he grinned through his delighted tears, setting off back to the cottage at his usual, just a little faster than strictly human speed.

Eliza sat back on her heels to wait for him, wiping at her own eyes and grinning like she’d never stop. She felt a little naked without the weight of the necklace, even though it had never been all that noticeable. She didn’t care though, in fact, it was what she wanted, she wanted to be at least a little changed by what she’d just done. She wanted there to be some marker that distinguished who she was then with who she was now.

Alex came back after just a few moments and what he held in his arms fully changed this from what could have been a fun, silly little game between the two of them into something real. He carefully swept his sealskin around her shoulders like an old-fashioned cloak, before the shock wore off and Eliza could think of protesting. It didn’t feel at all like she’d thought a seal’s skin would, just as it didn’t look exactly like the picture she’d held in her mind after the first-time Alex mentioned it. There was barely any weight to the material, more of a prickling, tingling sensation like static. And from the second it touched her skin, it was like Eliza could feel the waves themselves in her chest, a rolling sensation and the cold patter of spray and the sharp smell of salt. She was so moved by it, she barely noticed the deep shudder that ran up Alex’s spine. But she definitely heard the groan that tore from his lips, the kind of noise she’d heard him make before as her hands and mouth and skin had brushed the most intimate parts of him. It startled both of them, Alex was suddenly blushing and his pupils were suddenly dark and wide and wanting.

The words came easily, “I, Alexander, promise to love you, Eliza Schuyler, until the end of my days and all days, swim side by side with you until I have nothing else to give. I promise to guard you from the tide that seeks to separate us and the storm that threatens to lose us and the shark that comes to tear us. I swear, with me you shall always have warmth and security and safety and love, as much as you need until your heart is full. I am yours.”

The words were designed for another cadence, another voice, a language that Eliza would never be able to know. But they worked just fine as they were.

Wiping her eyes had been a waste of time; they were back to flowing freely as she kissed him again, both of them moving to seal their new, nameless bond as the sun finally surrendered completely to the horizon and night fell.

Eliza was still wearing his skin ten minutes later as she bucked and writhed on their bed, Alex’s mouth pressed between her legs, avidly working her over. After that, her necklace swung and struck his chest in a perfectly regular, bouncing rhythm as he rocked and moaned while her long fingers opened him and pressed hard on his sweet spot. And when they were both spent, they lay tangled up together in aching, exhausted contentment, looking through the forest of books they owned for their new name.

Eliza rejected ‘Shakespeare’ outright. Alex thought ‘Poe’ hit the ear wrong and, besides, his stories weren’t that scary. ‘Gaiman’ wasn’t quite right, neither was ‘Pullman’ and ‘Voltaire’ was just ridiculous. ‘Austen’ was on the table for a while until Eliza realised that the alliteration would make his name sound clunky. It was Alex who eventually found the right one, lying right there on their bedside table, from the cover of the almost offensively huge science fiction pulp he was currently enjoying. Eliza thought it was only fair to let Alex have the last word, seeing as this was his first go at it.

They ran their new names over each other’s tongues for ages, passing them back and forth with delighted, childlike grins. The skin would return to the varnished chest at the foot of their bed, despite its exchange of ownership. The little silver sailboat would stay around Alex’s neck for the rest of their time together. And, eventually, they would get traditional wedding rings for themselves, as a first anniversary present. But these surnames were always going to be the truest and realest symbol of their marriage.

Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza Hamilton.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Eliza get some news

Eliza had never been so happy to be exhausted.

She always looked forward to the walk from the tiny little bungalow that served the town’s elementary schoolers to her home. It gave her a chance to relax her mind after a busy day, wave hello and exchange pleasantries with the people she passed, remind herself just how beautiful this place was.

The dusk was gathering tonight as she strode along and she found herself immeasurably glad she’d remembered her scarf and gloves. As nice as summer had been, late November was proving to be a different kettle of fish entirely; one of these mornings, Eliza was certain she’d wake up to frost on the ground. Her azaleas weren’t going to like that at all.

She pulled her collar up a little higher as the walk to her isolated little cottage exposed her to the open sea which was kicking out a ferocious, heavy, wet bluster that seemed to reach under every protective layer of clothing she had to raise goose bumps on her skin. If she got sick, she was going to be so miffed; she had so much fun stuff planned for her class for the holidays and really didn’t fancy dressing up like Rudolph on the last day of school or organising a times table themed chocolate coin treasure hunt with a stuffed-up nose and headache. She was already feeling much more worn out than usual, although that probably had more to do with having her first nine to five, Monday to Friday job ever.

But it was a tiredness she could be proud of and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. If this was the cost of having the tiny class of tiny third graders look at her with such trust and devotion, having all twelve of them (it was a small town, there weren’t that many children to speak of) hanging off her skirt at playtime, bringing her little sprigs of the rough lavender that grew along the edges of the yard which she dutifully tucked into her ponytail, coming to her when a particularly hard piece of homework had them feeling down on themselves for hugs and reassurance. It was a price she was more than willing to pay, she’d never felt so driven or invigorated about anything, she’d never been so sure that she was doing exactly what she’d been built for.

The instant embrace of warmth and a familiar cosy scent as soon as she pushed back the front door (it always jammed a little, you had to shove it hard with one shoulder) only strengthened her good mood.

“Babe?” she called, stripping off her sodden coat and wilting knitwear, speckled with raindrops that would hopefully dissipate in the heat, “I’m back.”

The fact that Alex wasn’t immediately hurrying out from wherever he’d tucked himself away, hugging her and demanding details about her day and covering her face in kisses and wrapping himself around her like a koala in an attempt to warm her back up, that was her first clue that something was up. Her second clue was the realisation that the fire wasn’t on, the smell of burning and the slight sooty haze in the air were actually coming from the kitchen. Her third clue was the smoke alarm suddenly flaring to life with a panicked, skittish beeping.

That was all the incentive she needed.

“Alex?” Eliza’s voice was significantly more panicked as she dashed into their poky kitchen to see her husband coughing and spluttering in a plume of black smoke that had apparently just poured from the opened oven.

“Oh, hey Betsey,” he croaked back, hacking into the back of his hand but still attempting a light, casual tone, “Did you have a good day at work?”

Eliza gaped at him, going to throw open the windows and grabbing a dishcloth to wave the smoke away, “Uh, fine? Thanks? What on earth are you trying to burn down our house for?”

“I…um…” he looked sheepish, his hands wringing behind his back as he took a step back to shamefacedly watch Eliza swoop in and quickly retrieve the source of the trouble; a baking dish that held something that looked more volcanic than edible.

“I…I was trying to make you dinner?” he confessed in a small voice, both of them looking in bewilderment at the blackened sludge in the dish.

“You…” Eliza processed this slowly, “And what exactly were you trying to make?”

Alex paused for a long time, looking at his feet, “Mac and cheese?”

There was another, heavy pause before Eliza couldn’t hold back any longer and burst out laughing, having to drop the culinary disaster and clutch the counter for support as tears that had nothing to do with the smoke in the air streamed down her face.

After a while, Alex couldn’t help but join in. There  _ was _ something pretty hilarious about the situation, even he could see that.

Eliza was still chuckling even after the dish had been abandoned to the trash can outside and the open windows had taken care of most of the smog. The little glass window in the oven was probably always going to be stained black from now on but they could live with that.

“I really am sorry,” Alex said for the fiftieth time, though he was smiling. He was pulling out ingredients for his second attempt, this time with supervision, “I have no idea how I messed up that badly.”

“It’s okay,” Eliza insisted fondly, rubbing his arm as she passed by to get another mixing bowl, “it was so sweet of you to want to cook for me. You could have just waited though, I’d love to teach you how to cook?”

Alex shifted a little, looking coy, “But that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

Eliza turned, giving him a careful glance, “Not how what’s supposed to work, exactly?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck, getting some flour in his long, dark hair, “Well…I’m your mate, right? I’m supposed to provide for you, I’m supposed to get you food and shelter and all that. I thought, seeing as I can’t just go out and snag a fish in my jaws, this was the next best thing? Except I ruined it…”

Eliza tilted her head, a fond smile growing on her face. She wandered over to him, caught a little flour on one forefinger and dabbed it on the tip of his nose playfully, chasing away his forlorn expression.

“It’s a little different up here, Alex,” she smiled, “We’re a team, okay? We work together. Although…” she rose up on her tiptoes to press a gentle kiss to his mouth, “It is incredibly sweet of you.”

Alex was blushing now, grinning goofily in that way she knew and loved, “Even though I nearly burned our house down?”

“Ah, what’s a little light arson in a marriage?” Eliza shrugged nonchalantly, grinning, “I’m sure most first time homeowners have to deal with a mild nuclear meltdown occurring in their oven?”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Alex, he was losing his explicitly literal nature, “I’m never living this down, am I?”

“Absolutely not,” Eliza kissed him again, already thinking of how she was going to retell this little escapade in the most exciting way in her next email to her sisters.

Alex kissed her back, winding his arms around her waist lovingly, anchoring her against him, drawing out every second of contact until they had to break apart for air.

“Come on,” now it was Eliza’s turn to blush and squirm under Alex’s intensely loving gaze, wriggling away to turn back to the scales, “You’ve got me hungry for mac and cheese now, show me what you can do.”

Eliza quickly saw where Alex had been going wrong, with the amount of times she had to stop him from just tipping an avalanche of salt into the sauce or remind him that water needed heat under it to boil. He apparently forgot after two seconds that there was a recipe he was supposed to be following and the instincts he followed instead were a little…misguided?

They had a lot of fun though, ending up with bright smiles and flour handprints scattered across their clothing (not to mention two matching ones on the seat of Alex’s jeans that Eliza crossed her heart and swore weren’t her doing), eating pasta from the dish set between the two of them on the table.

“This is really really good Alex!” Eliza made sure to shower him with compliments to soothe his bruised ego, “Honestly, it’s amazing.”

Alex gave her a rueful smile, suspecting what she was doing but not particularly minding, “I’ll get better. But this is an okay start.”

“Better than okay,” Eliza shook her head, spearing some more on her fork, she really was ravenous after working all day, “Perfect.”

He pulled a face at her, earning one right back until they both dissolved into giggles. They kept eating, chatting companionably.

“So…seeing as being a world-famous chef might be just a  _ little  _ bit out of your reach?” Eliza smiled teasingly, “Did you have any more thoughts about sending off your manuscript?”

Alex shifted, his cheeks reddening a little. It had taken weeks and weeks of persuasion and promises not to laugh for him to give over the pages he’d been scribbling on for a while now, whenever his wife was at work or on the frequent nights he couldn’t sleep. When Eliza had finally been allowed to read it, she’d been stunned.

It was like long form narrative poetry, something Joyce-esque with a shifting, mesmerising plot that could never really be nailed down, only in the most teasingly imperceptible way of a voyage and a struggle and a searching. He wrote the way he ran, the way he swam and sang to himself in the shower and made love to her. Like someone from another reality. It was so beautiful, there’d been tears in Eliza’s eyes by the time she’d finished.

Her father had a lot of friends in publishing, it made sense for a politician to have an in with the people who dispensed knowledge. The offer to send it to one of them, to see if they’d want to actually print it, was one of the first things that sprang to her mind. Alex had reacted with pleased embarrassment, books were things of real magic and power to him and the idea that he could produce one himself was absurd flattery. But Eliza had been perfectly serious, she was still perfectly serious, the stuff Alex wrote in just a month or so was the stuff people studied and students poured over for years. He’d eventually sighed and groaned and rolled his eyes but promised to think it over. 

Now, he huffed in resignation, he’d been anticipating her bringing this up again, “I just don’t think that one’s good enough, maybe if I had time to write something different I could put more effort in…”

But Eliza had been anticipating this too, she knew her Alex well. He’d insist that it wasn’t ready, that he just needed more time, he just needed to tweak it, until they ended up never taking any steps forward. She opened her mouth, a firm but gentle argument ready and perched on her tongue but her stomach gave a sudden and violent lurch, turning it all into just a soft, anxious squeak.

“Eliza?” Alex said cautiously, not at all liking the way her expression suddenly fell and her skin took on this green tinge.

“God damn it,” Eliza groaned softly, a cold sweat breaking over her forehead as she dropped her fork and leapt to her feet, just about making it to the bathroom, heaving and retching into the toilet.

Alex’s heart dropped and he went after her, cursing himself. First, he’d created a miniature volcano, then he’d gone and poisoned his wife, he couldn’t fucking do anything right…

He was never much good with illness, it was hardly the biggest problem out there in the ocean, humans were much more fragile, but he did what he could, gently rubbing between Eliza’s shoulder blades and keeping the long trailing ends of her braids safe from harm. He murmured soft, sorrowful apologies as he helped her move gingerly until she was slumped against the wall, groaning.

“It’s not your fault,” she breathed, her voice trembling and weak, “I knew this damn weather would make me sick, I always get flu when it’s cold…”

Alex gave a mirthless laugh as he passed her a hastily poured glass of water, “And I bet you always get food poisoning when you eat food made by a complete moron.”

She gave him a look over the rim of the glass, warning him off. She never let him get away with any self-deprecating comment.

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong with your food…the second time,” she made the amendment quietly and quickly, “You watch, next it’ll be a blocked nose then a headache, I’ll feel sorry for myself for a few days and then I’ll be totally fine.”

Alex still looked fretful, still holding her braid, toying with it anxiously. Eliza caught his hand in her own, squeezing reassuringly.

“Totally fine. I promise,” she gave him a rough, tired smile.

“Totally fine,” Alex echoed, nodding and trying to relax.

As it happened, they were both wrong.

-

“Wait I’m…what?”

The doctor on the other end of the phone was still talking but Eliza wasn’t hearing any of it. She’d thought they were calling to tell her that her tests came back completely fine, that it was just a nasty flu and she could just take some pills or whatever and clear it right up. That’s what she’d told Alex, at least, when he’d begun to seriously panic after about a week of her throwing up and not being able to get out of bed until midday and getting dizzy at odd moments. He’d been insufferable to the point that she’d gone to her appointment with the doctor’s, a generous handful of miles away from their isolated little fishing village, alone.

She could see him out of the corner of her eye, shifting anxiously on the sofa and watching her, studying her face. She realised her expression right now must be terrifying him but she just couldn’t change it.

The doctor kept saying that word in a gentle, understanding, congratulatory voice but every time she said it, it made less and less sense to Eliza. She just wanted her to stop talking really, go away and let her process this, the buzz of information was turning her neutral confusion into out and out panic. Finally, mercifully, she went, Eliza finding herself promising to come in the day after tomorrow for a follow up, nodding along at mentions of weights and measuring and plans and procedures, until she was left with a dial tone.

“What did they say?” the words were out of Alex’s mouth the second the phone slipped from Eliza’s ear to hang limply at her side.

“Um…” Eliza blinked, feeling very far away from her surroundings, the shock playing tricks with her perspective as it has a way of doing.

“Is it flu?” his voice was stained with panic that he was making no effort to hide, “Or iron deficiency? Stomach ulcers?”

Eliza sighed softly, coming over to sit by him, finding it easier to deal with his fright than her own shock, “Baby, I told you not to read those old medical journals, they’re a little grisly…”

Alex didn’t seem to notice the gentle rebuke, his hand scrambled like an injured bird to catch hold of hers, “Eliza, I’m scared, what did the doctor  _ say? _ ”

Eliza ran her thumb over his knuckles, trying to bring him back down. If he fell apart, she’d go right with him and then there’d be no hope.

“Alex, I’m not dying, I haven’t got a disease.” That much was true, anyway.

“Then what is it?” Alex let go of a little of his worry, just a little, he could still see the distress in her eyes as clear as day.

Eliza wasn’t quite sure how to phrase this, her mind was stalling and stuttering like the thought was too hot to pick up and she flinched away from it every time she touched it.

“You told me that there were…stories? Of people like us, Selkies and humans that bonded?” she spoke carefully, not letting go of his hand.

Alex blinked in confusion, sitting back on his heels. He rationalised that if Eliza was asking him about folktales and songs, then there couldn’t exactly be a disaster on the horizon.

“Yeah, there are some songs,” Alex nodded, shifting closer to her to rest his head on her shoulder, “I don’t know how true they are but that’s the only way my people pass on any kind of history.”

Some part of Eliza’s brain that hadn’t quite caught up with the rest of her wondered if that was why her husband had such a talent for writing, for constructing these amazing, epic poems that seemed almost tangible. It was what he was used to. Did Selkies trade around such beautiful lyrical verses like casual conversation? Eliza couldn’t even imagine it.

She swallowed, tucking her legs up so she was closer to him, “And…did they have happy endings? Those songs and the people in them?”

Alex frowned, “Not a lot of our stories do, sweetheart.”

That was the truth, a life spent avoiding predators and constantly facing starvation or destruction, a life of being hunted didn’t tend to produce happy fairy tales.

“Oh…” That wasn’t the answer she wanted and Alex could tell.

“Eliza?” he breathed, begging now, begging quietly for reassurance that she was okay because he was starting to seriously doubt that she was.

Eliza closed her eyes tight, shrinking down into herself a little, “Alex, were there…did they…”

He clung to her hand, sensing her slipping away.

“Were there children in those stories?”

The words jumped out of her once they were found, making her recoil a little, like they had physical force behind them.

Alex tilted his head, “Yes. In some of them…” Realisation sank in and his eyes widened, his jaw dropping a little.

Eliza faced down his gaze, her lower lip starting to tremble as the truth as yet unspoken struck both of them.

“You’re pregnant?” Alex, always the bravest with emotion despite the consequences, was the one who finally said it. It had a question mark at the end but it wasn’t a question. There was no doubt.

“Yes,” Eliza nodded, her mouth now downturned and shaking, tears creeping up on her with an unstoppable approach. She didn’t want to be crying. She didn’t want Alex to think this wasn’t what she wanted, it was, in some very real way it was. But at the same time, she was scared. God, damn it, she was terrified. She was twenty one and so far from home and everything she’d known up until this point, being faced with the idea that she could do something as raw and significant as have a child, that she had a whole other soul and life to take care of. She’d never been so scared in all her life and now what would Alex think when he saw her on the verge of sobbing at the discovery that they’d made a life together?

As it happened, what he did was he wrapped his arms around her, pressing her against him so she felt nothing but his warmth and his strength and the pounding of his heart.

“Eliza, I love you,” he whispered, his words holding as much truth and power and beauty as she found in his writing, like he was pouring out his soul to her. Even more intense for the fact that it was held in four words rather than fourteen pages, like it obeyed the physical laws of force dissipated over a larger surface area.

And then she was crying, sobbing against his chest, dissolving and surrendering to her emotion but knowing now that it was okay. Alex was holding her, he’d bring her back once it was over. She was safe with him.

His long, careful fingers stroked her hair and his arms rocked her and his gentle voice murmured words in her ear as she cried her eyes out, asking nothing of her, just giving her space and security to deal with this. And when she was through to the other side, he just held her face and kissed the burning salt from her cheeks and rested his forehead against her own.

And Eliza felt like a different person. She felt like someone strong enough to do this. As long as there would always be those arms to hold her and that voice in her ear. As long as she had her mate, her Alex.

Eliza’s shaky hands left his shoulders and settled on her own belly. Of course, there was nothing there yet, nothing physical. But she felt the spark all the same, she felt the presence of someone reaching back.

“Betsey?” Alex murmured softly, daring to hope.

A slow smile spread across Eliza’s face, crinkling her red, bloodshot eyes and lifting her flushed, blotchy cheeks. And, as far as her husband was concerned, she’d never looked more beautiful.

“We’re going to be parents,” she laughed, a delighted and bewildered sound, “I’m going to have a baby, we’re going to be  _ parents!” _

Alex started to laugh too, his thumbs running along her cheekbones, “Yeah. Yeah, we are, you beautiful, gorgeous, perfect, amazing woman…”  

Eliza blushed under his praise and the messy, hurried kisses that followed, their lips crashing together with no finesse or care, their feelings too raw to bother about such things. Eliza tipped backwards, pulling Alex with her. She laughed, her voice rasping, as she stroked his hair while his kisses travelled down her body until his head rested over her stomach, resting his forehead against her skin like he’d done with her just moments ago. Saying his first hello to whoever was in there.

Alex smiled and closed his eyes, certain, despite all medical science, that he could hear a tiny second heartbeat under the more familiar thud of Eliza’s. A thought occurred to him in that moment, a thought he’d share with Eliza later as she braced herself to call her parents, as his fingers soothingly massaged her shoulders.

Selkie stories didn’t have happy endings.

But theirs would.

-

Eliza stood on the threshold of their cottage, stood on her tiptoes and waved, the wind whipping her dress and hair into a storm around her, but still she stayed until the car had crested the hill and dipped out of sight. Even then she lingered a little, until it got too cold and she couldn’t ignore the goose bumps rising on her skin, until she heard Alex’s voice calling her back. She gave a small, fond smile; he’d been agonising over her nearly constantly in an endearing, protective way.

Over them both, she thought to herself, her smile widening. Her hand gently skirted over the swell in her woollen dress.

Eliza came back inside and sat down heavily on the sofa with a bone deep sigh of relief, her head lolling back and her eyes closing. As glad as she was that the rift she’d opened in her family was completely healed, as happy as she was to have the chance to show them her new life that she’d build for herself and how comfortable she was now, she still was so, so glad they were gone.

That was family, she supposed.

Time, distance, Angelica and Peggy’s mediating and the fact that they had their first grandchild on the way, the combined weight of all these factors was enough to bring her parents down here for a visit. It had been a little stiff, a little awkward, some pointed questions had needed dodging but Eliza thought that only added to the success of it. Enough to satisfy them that she’d made the right decision but enough to make them keep their distance, to not feel the need to micromanage her life the way they did with Angelica (despite the fact that she didn’t need it) and Peggy (despite the fact that she didn’t listen). Her two sisters had come down too, made themselves invaluable as ever, acted as a buffer to soothe their parents’ fears and Eliza’s exasperation. But of course, what had really made the reconciliation an inevitability had been the sight of Eliza cradling her small but noticeable, fourth month old bump. Her parents melted instantly.

“You little miracle worker,” she murmured softly, not opening her eyes. She always felt that they could hear her better when she was focusing on nothing but the sensation of them under her fingers. Whenever Eliza talked to them- which was very, very often- she did it with closed eyes and a small, enigmatic smile.

She heard Alex’s footsteps coming down the rickety stairs, the sound of bare soles on uneven wood, his airy voice singing to himself under his breath. Music was another human concept he’d latched onto almost obsessively, though he claimed it was a little lacking compared to the kind of lyrics he’d heard before he walked on two legs. All the same, he treasured the vinyl record player she’d brought with them from Albany, he’d play a record over and over until he was sickened on it. For the last few days it was Edith Piaf who’d stolen his heart in particular. Eliza didn’t mind, she’d owned that box of records since she was fifteen, she loved every song in that box with a deep, nostalgic adoration. And she was finding the melancholy, the memories of lying on her bed as a teenager and finding solace in these songs, extremely comforting in her pregnancy.

Just yesterday, when the blues she couldn’t quite pinpoint or tangle her way out of had caught hold of her, the lowness and discomfort her doctor just shook her head and explained away as a normal symptom, Alex had known exactly what to do. He’d taken hold of her hands and pulled her into the kitchen, taking her around the floor in a kind of slow, careful waddling waltz that was all she could manage right now but it had brought Eliza back into the light in moments. They’d ended up making slow, gentle love against the wall with that gorgeous, lilting music still accompanying their movements and Eliza had ended up crying from the beauty of it, how happy she was.

And it left Alex always singing. That she loved more than anything. His voice lent itself well to song, it was raspy and it snapped in places and some notes wandered away but it was real and it had so much more feeling to it than she’d ever heard. She could listen to her Alex sing all day long.

She opened her eyes to watch him, laughing in amusement but not surprise when she saw he’d stripped right down to his boxers. He never was going to get the hang of clothes.

Eliza could almost actually see the stress and anxiety trail out of him, like ribbons of steam leaving a burning hot surface, she was so relieved. She knew having her whole family come to visit had been the most she’d ever asked of him. The weight of fabricating a whole life, a childhood spent in this town, running into Eliza at college, falling in love, a whirlwind proposal, having to keep all the little tics and habits that made him himself in check, hold himself awkwardly, like he was balancing a book on his head for the entire day, it had almost been too much. They’d had to pull away for an hour or so in the middle of the day, under the pretence of Eliza needing a nap, for her to just sit with his head in her lap, stroking his hair and rocking him, loving on him every way she knew how. She knew it made him feel like an outsider, to have to play this part. Talking art with her mother and listening to her father’s political rants he’d happily dispense to anyone who showed a passing interest, hiding so much of himself and who he was, it all just reminded him with a painful sharpness that he didn’t fit.

But he’d done it for her. And he’d done so well, her parents had gone from eyeing him distrustfully to shaking his hand and smiling warmly in the space of six hours, that in itself was no mean feat.  

Eliza poured every scrap of love she could find into the gaze she gave him as her weary husband came and knelt in the space between her legs, resting his head against her stomach and breathing in a sigh so deep it must have made his ribs ache.

“My brave, beautiful man,” Eliza cooed softly, bending over him, “My hero.”

Alex gave a small laugh, her voice tired, “That went well.”

“It went better than  _ well, _ Alex, they loved you!” she praised him generously, knowing it would be like a balm on his raw anxiety, “They probably like you more than me! You had them laughing and you answered all their questions perfectly and…and, baby, I’m so proud of you…”

“I’m just glad it’s done,” he mumbled, catching her hand and pressing his lips to her palm, “If I’m allowed to say that.”

“Honey, I am right there with you,” Eliza reassured him with a gentle laugh, “That’s satisfied my desire to see my family for…the next twelve years, I’d say.”

Alex snickered along with her, the giggling, bubbling laughter of relief at the end of a long journey, as social batteries recharged and familiarity returned. He took his kisses over to her stomach, that had been the focus of his attentions recently, like it was the centre of his universe.

“Your daddy did pretty good, huh?” he grinned, his voice gentle, “Didn’t do a half bad job passing as human?”

Eliza laughed, Alex was as talkative with their unborn baby as he was with anyone. She loved it, actually, held onto the thought that their child would be born knowing their father’s voice like a precious coin. Like a lighthouse’s glare.

“You did amazingly, Alex, I can’t thank you enough,” Eliza answered for their little one.

He gave her a sleepy smile, looking proud of himself. And that was all Eliza could ever have asked for. That was part of loving someone so completely, she’d realised, having them love themselves being as necessary your own oxygen. Needing them to see and know everything amazing that made you love them.

“I have an idea,” she said quietly, grinning.

Alex tilted his head, quizzically, “Yeah?”

The only answer she gave him was to gingerly get to her feet, waving at him to stay put.

“Eliza?” he narrowed his eyes, “Baby, you shouldn’t be on your feet, c’mon, just tell me and I’ll do it…”

Eliza shot him a warning look, “Sweetheart, if you don’t calm down you’re going to have a heart attack before the baby even gets here. I can walk up stairs, okay? Now shush and stay put.”

Alex dropped back down onto his ass, scowling and folding his arms. A combination of the two things he hated the most, having his pregnant wife moving around when he could be fetching and carrying for her. And not knowing what was going on.

He sulked half-heartedly until he heard her soft voice coming from upstairs. He was up and moving in a heartbeat, only skidding to a halt when he pushed back their bedroom door and saw what she’d made for him.

This time he didn’t need prompting. He took her hand and pulled her into the blanket fort that was taking up most of the floor space, curling up with her gladly, back in the soft, warm glow of the place they’d both first discovered exactly what it was they had. This was one thing that hadn’t gotten away from them, however far they’d come in such a short space of time.

“Thank you, Eliza,” he sighed for the millionth time, his face happily buried in her hair.

“I thought you could use some space,” she replied with a satisfied smile, her eyes closed and her head pillowed on the lower part of his stomach so he could koala himself around her in the way he liked to do.

“I kind of did, yeah,” he laughed at the understatement, shaking his head a little at her canny.

Eliza’s smile turned a little wicked as she made up her mind that they’d been lying here cuddling for long enough, “I think I have something else you could use.”

Alex blinked in confusion, making a soft noise of perplexity, until he felt her hands pulling his boxers down his legs.

“Betsey…” he breathed, heat pooling in the base of his stomach as her warm breath touched the most intimate part of him.

The unpredictability of her hormones had given them both a lot of sleepless nights recently but Alex had rarely found himself on the receiving end. Not that he minded at all, he enjoyed giving as much as anything and felt so relieved to have a problem he knew and enjoyed fixing.

Eliza felt his hesitation as her hands rested on his hips. She looked up at him, her eyes catching the low light, “Alex? Sweetheart, we don’t have to, I just want to bring you back to yourself a little? I just want to make you feel good…”

What she really wanted was to show him how loved he was, human or not, how none of that mattered to her and what they’d been through today didn’t mean that fitting in with her family was a condition of her wanting to be with him. If her mother and father had taken one look at him and spat on the ground in disgust, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was nothing more than convenience; her love was tied to something much deeper and unshakable.

But that was a little too complicated to say. She just hoped it came across in the way she ran her fingers across his skin.

Alex answered with his hands tangling in her hair, a silent gesture of permission. By the time, Eliza was finished with him, after she’d broken him with her mouth, turned him around and put him back together, again with her mouth, they were exhausted. Sleep came easily, all worries and anxieties forgotten, replaced with closeness and warmth.

Alex and Eliza were finding that sometimes they didn’t need words. 

 -

Summer couldn’t come back around sooner for Eliza.

As much as she’d loved the months that had gone by, as fun as it had been introducing Alex to the concept of Christmas, celebrating the new year with the knowledge that one of the top publishers in New York city, a close personal friend of Senator Schuyler, had accepted Alex’s submission and already asked for more. Something about the concept of a reclusive, postmodern poet scribbling away his tomes in some salt burned corner of Oregon had a rustic magic to it that the intellectuals of the city couldn’t get enough of, positive reviews were flooding in. Alex didn’t have a clue what half of the words people used to describe his work meant but the advance cheque would easily cover the cost of a crib and paint for the nursery so, frankly, he couldn’t care less. And Eliza was proud of him.

As much as she loved spring, seeing her new flowers coming through and getting to feel the sun on her skin again and some blue return to the sky rather than near constant grey so monotonous that the clouds and the sea seemed to run into one, unending canvas.  Seeing the buds studding their careful, delicate trails across the open palms of the tree branches had broken her out of a day’s long slump and made her laugh for no reason other than flowers were beautiful and she was happy.

But Eliza found herself more than ready for summer. Not just for being free of work, of standing on her swollen ankles and fighting her instincts to do nothing all day but curl up and nap, but for the freedom of having nothing in the world to do but wait. She was unlike Alex in that way. While he was in a constant state of restless, impatient shifting, ticking the days off on the calendar, she was more than happy to enjoy the waiting. She’d always had the personal philosophy that there was nothing she could do to make time go faster, so it was much better just to watch it flow past at its own pace. There was comfort in the inevitability, the certain future. So, she was the one who chuckled affectionately and ruffled Alex’s hair and kissed the back of his neck, reminding him that the baby would come when they were ready and not before. He was the one who huffed and sighed exaggeratedly, more in performance than anything, whining about the infuriatingly long gestation periods for humans and groaning that he was going to explode if he had to wait another second. It was a fun, familiar little routine they had, resolving nothing between them.

Both of them were relieved when Eliza’s first day of vacation arrived, when they went to bed safe in the knowledge that they could stay there as long as they liked and not a damn thing could make them move. Despite their shared sleepiness, they stayed up late, making love in an almost defiant, celebratory way.

Eliza had discovered a deep, ravenous delight in watching Alex pleasure himself. She could lose herself in moments, in how his tight, lithe body rolled and rocked as if to music, how his hands moved like they had minds of their own, brushing lightly and teasing and palming before suddenly gripping and striking with enough force to make him shriek, seemingly without any command from Alex himself. He took such uncomplicated joy in performing for her, emphasising every single movement so she didn’t miss anything, making loud, exaggerated noises and throwing himself into it until his hair came loose and clung to his damp face, riding as many fingers as she instructed him while stroking himself off, moving with such wanton need but still denying himself if she asked it, only finishing on her express command. That night she worked him hard, repeatedly, until he was a mess and her own body was screaming for some attention, practically pouncing on him when she finally let herself go, gripping his shoulders and dragging him between her legs.

If Alex and Eliza hadn’t finally fallen asleep so exhausted and satisfied and happy, the storm would have woken them for sure; Alex wasn’t fond of storms and Eliza was a light sleeper these days. But, as it happened, they managed to sleep on for a few hours as the rain began beating its rapid tattoo against the windows and the wind started up its angry, robust howl and their little cottage swayed under the furious pacing of the storm around the bay.

What eventually woke Eliza was the sudden, sharp pressure against her skin, flinging her back into consciousness with a sensation not unlike she’d fallen from a great height and struck the ground with sickening force. She moaned groggily, shifting out of Alex’s arms, jolting him awake too, just in time to scream hoarsely as lightning turned their room into a negative of itself.

Eliza forgot her own discomfort in an instant, taking hold of Alex’s arms and snapping his gaze to her, “No, no, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s only the storm…my love, it’s okay, you’re safe…”

Alex’s breathing was ragged and his eyes were fixed on the window, awash with so many raindrops they blurred into one solid sheet like melted glass. There was a rumble of thunder, partner to the lightning and he moaned, trembling.

“I don’t like storms, I don’t like storms, I don’t like storms,” the rapid, garbled chanting replaced his breathing, his fingers turned to white jointed claws in his tangle of hair.

Another burst from outside and the harsh, excruciating light fell across his angular face. And for the briefest of seconds his teeth looked longer and tapered to points, his eyes became solid black, there were shadows across his cheekbones that weren’t there before, sharp and predatory and…fearsome. Eliza actually withdrew, before her brain could pull her back, her hands flying from his shoulders to wrap around her swollen belly protectively. It was just how her body reacted.

The moment that drew out between them was sickening. Alex watching his wife flinch away from him in fear. Eliza seeing his fear and panic turning him into something neither of them recognised, her body betraying her. Eyes wide, hearts stopping, bile rising in throats. And a thought shared between the two of them; please god no, take it back,  _ take it back… _

Then Eliza doubled over, a sudden pinching sensation forcing another groan from her, sweat beading along her hairline and between her shoulder blades.

“Eliza?” Alex’s stomach went into freefall, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

And the moment was forgotten, it was gone, like it never happened. They both somehow knew it needed to be that way, letting it disintegrate with no protest. It wasn’t like either of them wanted to hang on to it.

“I’m fine,” she took deep, rapid breaths of air, running her hands over her skin, “They’re just kicking.”

“Are you sure?” Alex’s anxiety had taken a backseat, a little happy for something else to focus on even as his fretful father to be instincts went into overdrive, “What if it’s, y’know,  _ it?” _

“We still have about a month, baby,” Eliza tried not to sound like she was convincing him, stroking his bare arm and hoping the darkness hid how ashy her skin had turned, “They don’t have a whole lot of room in there and they mustn’t feel like sleeping- “

She was interrupted by another loud shout from the sky that seemed to shake the ground underneath their little home. And a beat later by another hard kick from the baby, a little too rough and sudden to let her hold back the pained yelp.

“Ow…” she whimpered, her eyes tightly closed.

Alex gave a small, worried croon, shuffling forward on his knees and placing shaky palms against her stomach, frowning a little at how hot and thin it felt, even more compared to his own cool skin.

“I…I don’t think they like the storm…” he murmured thoughtfully, vaguely, like the mechanics of his brain were still clicking even as he spoke, “I think they’re scared…”

Eliza’s bottom lip trembled, ache and exhaustion and tenderness bringing tears to her eyes. Her hands rested over Alex’s, the teardrops gradually dripping from her chin to dampen the outward curve of her nightdress, “Scared? Oh no, honey, it’s okay, please don’t be scared.”

All she got in response was another forceful kick that rattled her ribs; Alex had to catch her and gently ease her down onto her back, she couldn’t move herself until the crest of it had passed.

“I feel like this is my fault,” Alex’s eyes were wide and unhappy. His own reaction to the storm had been abandoned, all he cared about now was his child’s.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza sighed softly, her voice trembling just a little.

“No, I mean it,” he looked so forlorn, like he’d reached an uncomfortable conclusion, as he carefully settled himself next to her with the tension of someone standing guard rather than going to sleep, “The…strength and the storm and everything…this is me, this is my half, they’re like this because of me…”

Eliza couldn’t hear any more, couldn’t see that expression on his face any more. She shushed him gently and reached out to take his face between her hands, like before, but less of a frantic snatch away from the edge and more of a gentle pull towards the warmth.

“Hey,” she whispered, her fingers resting over his lips, soft and split from the cold and the temperature of a pebble pulled from the shoreline.

“Hey,” he answered, recognising her little signal to ease his grip on what was bothering him, give her the chance to take it from him.

“You know what else our baby is going to get from you?” she tilted her head, eyes sparkling in the shifting light. The moonlight split into scattered handfuls of shards, held within her iris.

Alex shook his head, easing himself closer so Eliza could drag the duvet back over them from where his thrashing had sent it to the floor.

“Well,” she rested her head on his chest, “Personally? I hope they have your lovely thick eyelashes. I hope they get your wonderful tawny skin. Your smile that uses your whole face and makes the bridge of your nose wrinkle up. And your kind heart and your curiosity and your reckless capacity for love.”

Alex was the one crying now, his eyelids fluttering as tears beaded on his lashes, as his thin shoulders shook with a mix of giggles and snuffles. But Eliza knew, as she smiled tenderly and covered his face in kisses, he was okay again.

There was more thunder and more lightning, the seconds between them climbing as the storm’s anger dissipated but with each one there was a powerful lurch inside Eliza that left her trembling and breathing hard so she didn’t scare Alex even more. She had it under control now, it wasn’t the discomfort, it was the idea that her precious little cargo was frightened and there was nothing she could do about it.

“It’ll pass, the storms leaving sweetie, it’s going,” Eliza whispered, curling into Alex, trying to keep the hard roundness of their baby tucked safe between the warmth of its parents.

“I have an idea,” Alex had been unusually silent for a while, just holding her, kneading her lower back to try and help with the pressure, “Might not work but…if my weird ass genes caused the problem, I can maybe fix it.”

Eliza opened her mouth to shoot down his choice of words but he was gone, ducking under the quilt. She turned over a little, gingerly, shifting her significant weight, trying to figure out what his plan was exactly. He’d been caressing her stomach for the past ten minutes without it having it’s usual impact, what on earth was he doing?

Eliza froze as soon as she heard his voice, his gentle, quiet singing, muffled a little with the blankets and the racket outside but still sounding so clear as if it originated from inside her own chest. This was nothing from her old records, it wasn’t listed on the back of any dust jacket in that case, this was nothing from her world at all. The language he sang in was constructed for another set of vocal cords, another medium and another time. It was unmistakably a lullaby, it had the right texture and lilt, dropping to almost a whisper at the end of each verse and easing through the cadence, rocking and swelling in an expressive mimicry of the movement of a mother’s arms. Or the roll of the waves. Eliza didn’t understand the words but as she listened, images were painted upon her mind that hadn’t come from her, light refracted through green water and seaweed tracing a thoughtful dance in the current and a slight tipping of perspective, looking at the world through a different angle. Within the confines of Alex’s song, up was down, down was up, gravity was nothing more than a slight compression against a gentle floating sensation, sight was useless but the nose, ears, fingertips were alive.

It was  _ haunting. _

But the baby growing inside her settled within a few lines, the pinching and the pressure eased into a soft pattering as they searched for their father’s voice, finding his hands and placing their tiny palms against his own. Even as more thunder and more lightning rocked the cottage, their nameless little one was still, soothed into sleep. Before much longer the storm broke and the weather let go of whatever grudge had riled it, leaving nothing more than a slightly sullen rainfall. Alex let go of the song, it seemed to have no natural end but just left his throat to continue on somewhere else, out of their reach.

He kissed Eliza’s belly, murmuring, “You be nice to your mama, okay, try not to hurt her for me? You both need some sleep now. I love you.”

He resurfaced, expecting a kiss or at least a grateful smile, his own a little bashful. What he found, to the breaking of his heart, was Eliza’s face twisted in grief and pain, tears flowing down her heart shaped face, following the exact shadows that the rain and the moonlight were tracing on her skin.

“Eliza?” he breathed, reaching out for her.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked, twisting her eyes shut as if to hide from him what he’d already seen, “It’s not…I mean…”

Alex sat up, gently easing her over to him so her head was cradled against his chest, “You can tell me? Please?” He couldn’t help if he didn’t know.

So many times, in the past eight months he’d been forced to accept a truth that sat bitterly with him, that some problems Eliza had he just couldn’t take away. All he could do was nod and hold her while she cried over the unfairness of throwing up every single morning and having to pull six hour shifts with no coffee or being unable to doze on her stomach like she loved to do on lazy Saturday mornings while Alex read the paper and fed her bits of toast. Little things that didn’t seem to hold that much importance at first glance but still she wept and the fact that she was weeping over such apparently trivial things made her weep even harder. And Alex couldn’t do a damn thing to change it. And that stung him.

But this was something deeper.

“I’m n-not crying b-b-because they’re like you,” Eliza sobbed, her voice dripping with misery, “I  _ swear _ I’m n-not. It’s just…”

Alex stiffened, letting her cling to his arm as her stomach kept her from throwing her arms around his middle.

“Then what, sweetheart?” He was getting the sense he wouldn’t like the answer.

“What if they…if they w-want to  _ go?”  _ Eliza wrenched the words out, dissolving into freshly agonised sobs at having spoken the words out loud.

Alex felt a chill as he realised what she meant. What if their baby was so much like him that they felt the same pull in their hearts that he felt every time the smell of salt caught in his nose or on his tongue or he heard the waves breaking on the shore, knowing just by sound alone which held the right currents to take him back. Back  _ where  _ was a question too vast to answer. Anywhere.

For Alex, the temptation was only ever brief, the old stale hunger for a drug he’d kicked long ago. The scent of Eliza’s hair or the brush of her fingertips on the back of his neck or the impossibly soft skin under the curve of her breasts chased it back down. Even when she was at work and he had the sea song caught in his head and there came that sly reminder from some part of his brain he didn’t fully control- his skin was just upstairs, the chest at the foot of their bed, it was right there- all he needed to do was find the diamond patterned sweater she’d been wearing all day yesterday and bury his nose in it, inhaling the smell of petrichor and garden soil and dew and flour, the scent of his mate. How could he want to be anywhere but here, by his beloved’s side?

There was no guarantee his child would feel the same.

What if they wanted to go? They baby Eliza had carried and formed with so much love, that Alex already adored with every scrap of himself without even seeing their face, what if they wanted the sea more than their parents?

“C-could they? I m-mean, they’d be half human, they won’t have a pelt, they couldn’t, could they? Alexander?” Eliza dug her nails into his arm in her desperation for comfort, silently imploring him to tell her she had nothing to worry about, their child would belong to the land.

“I…if they wanted it enough…” Alex’s throat felt half paralysed as he forced it to work, pushed away the desire to lie to his wife to preserve her feelings, “They’d get their sealskin from me.”

Eliza lifted her head to blink at him, her eyes confused, “What?”

Alex swallowed hard, “There’s a way. I’d cut them one. From my own.”

It would hurt, he knew that much. He’d never fully recover. But god, it would cost him more than just blood to do it.

“If they came and asked me, my love, I…I don’t know if I could say no,” he fought against tears of his own, “It would kill me, Betsey, of course it would but I couldn’t deny them it.”

“I understand,” Eliza rasped, miserably. She couldn’t resent him for that, she knew she couldn’t. At least, she tried so hard not to.

“I guess…Betsey, all we can do is just love them as much as we can and trust that they’ll make the right decision for them,” Alex sighed deeply, clutching her hand, “Look at the home we’ve made for them, the life we can give them…who could refuse this? Sure worked for me.”

The gentle attempt at humour earned him a watery smile. Eliza felt her weariness come flooding back, a wall of emotion that made her want to close her eyes and hide in the comfort of sleep. Alex was more than willing to provide, hugging her from behind, burying his face between her shoulder blades so she could rest in the safety of his arms. And it worked, in minutes her heavy eyelids closed to the world and she found peace.

But Eliza knew she’d discovered a fear that would live in some corner of her heart for the rest of her life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Eliza make another discovery down at the beach, something else is found

Alex sat cross legged on the sofa, his fingers so tightly tangled in his hair there was a definite chance he’d never get them loose. His eyes were fixed on Eliza as she paced back and forth like a caged tiger, anxiety and worry buzzing between the two of them.

“Alex?” Eliza moaned, stopping a minute to lean against the edge of the bookcase, pressing her free hand to the small of her back.

“Yeah?” he straightened up, waiting for instruction, eager for something, anything, to do to help.

“This fucking sucks,” she growled, her face twisting again.

Alex slumped, as lost as ever, as lost as he had been since Eliza had shaken him awake the night before after her first contraction. They must have passed fifty by now, a hundred, the sun was sinking below the horizon again and Alex had no more of an idea what to do now than he did then. Then, when his response to the fact that his wife was in labour had been to catapult to his feet so fast he nearly gave himself a concussion on the doorframe.

“I know, sweetheart,” Alex groaned, worrying the neck of his shirt now with anxious twisting hands, “Y’know I was reading, it’s because humans are bipedal? Like you guys evolved complex brains for thinking and the…the farming and the foraging and all that so that lead to bigger skulls on infants and then cos you walk on two legs that left less space for- “

“Alex?” Eliza grunted, cutting across his rambling, still braced against the bookshelf.

He bit his lip, “I…should shut up, shouldn’t I?”

“Good instincts,” she gasped, relaxing a little as the pain faded for now.

Alex closed his eyes, wishing that his run into the doorway had knocked him out. Maybe he would have been of more use to Eliza.

With all the books he’d been reading, the websites he’d been making pages and pages of notes from, the amount of times Eliza had patiently taken his hand and explained that no, they couldn’t do practise runs to the hospital, that would be a little too weird, how would they explain that to the reception lady? She already thought they were odd enough the amount of times Alex had been to the ER with electrical burns from forgetting that bread stuck in the toaster couldn’t be retrieved with a butter knife and regular burns in some very unusual places from not understanding the obvious dangers of cooking while naked.

With all of that, Alex had expected to feel more prepared for when it actually happened. But it had been nearly twenty-four hours, they’d driven the two hours to the hospital and back after being told that things weren’t ‘progressing’ enough and that Eliza needed to rest at home until it was ‘closer to the time’ and ‘there was no cause for panic just yet’. But now he was watching Eliza catch her breath and curl into a tight, painful ball every ten minutes, he couldn’t help but wonder how _close_ things had to get because this sure felt a lot like panicking.

Alex just wanted to be able to do something. He just wanted some way he could make up for the fact that his Eliza, his beautiful Eliza was in pain and it was all his fault.

He’d held her until the sun came up, it hadn’t stopped her whimpering. He’d rubbed her shoulders but she still had to change positions every five minutes to stay on the bearable side of uncomfortable. He’d brought her ice and tied her hair back and painted her nails and read to her and rocked her but none of it had stopped her pains gradually getting worse to the point where she didn’t want him anywhere near her, apologetically shrinking away from his hands, preferring this restless, solitary pacing.

And all the while, a thought had started to grow in the stem of Alex’s brain, something black and restless that kept plucking at him with fingers like splintered tree branches nudging him. All they had to go on here was songs and stories, the information he’d been collecting like a magpie over the last few months could only take them so far. What if the reality was that he and Eliza just couldn’t work? Biologically, scientifically, physically?

And what if he’d only realised that too late to help her?

As Eliza gave another pained, keening cry, Alex forced himself to mentally smack the pinching, restless hands away. He could freak out as much as he wanted later, right now his mate needed him. He got to his feet, wiping as much of the anxiety and exhaustion from his face as he could manage, coming to stand by her, brushing errant hairs away from her pale face.

“Hey there,” Eliza whispered weakly, once the pain had faded enough to speak.

“Hey,” Alex couldn’t help but chuckle a little, awed by how brave and strong she was, “Come on, why don’t you sit down? Take another shower or something, that seemed to help?”

Eliza shook her head tightly, “Don’t think so. Think I want to keep moving.”

She couldn’t be sure of anything, she was only getting fractured information from her body in sharp, painful bursts, like she was tuned to the wrong radio station and all she had were garbled snatches of songs in languages she couldn’t place. It was sickeningly distressing; the only thing she knew for certain was that she hated it and wanted this to be over. Tears that didn’t just come from her physical pain were leaking from her eyes and dripping off her chin like a raw, endless waterfall.

 _Where are you?_ she thought, mournfully, her hands on her stomach

Alex gnawed on his lower lip as his hands kneaded her shoulders unconsciously, the way a cat paws at a soft surface for comfort. And then, in a moment of clarity, he had his first good idea all day.

Eliza tried not to moan piteously as she felt him move away. She knew she must be torturing her poor Alex, wanting him close and then pushing him back without warning, snapping and sobbing for him, moving between the two as errantly as butterfly wings. She knew every sound she made, every time he caught her face tightening and twisting, he felt a pain as deep and sharp as her own, that this had put him in one of his least favourite states- helplessness.

But the truth was that Eliza needed him desperately, no matter what came out of her mouth or what her hands did. If he hadn’t been here, she’d have crumbled a long time ago.

But Alex returned quickly, skittering around in the corner with something she didn’t have the strength to turn her head to see. And then the room was filled with sound, a hesitant scratching and a staticky crunch and then music. Fleetwood Mac. Her favourite.

Alex’s smile was tentative and a little coy when he moved back into her field of vision and offered her his hand, the palm cracked and calloused as it had been the day she first met him. Now Eliza could map the valley of it with her eyes closed.

“May I have this dance?” Alex looked disarmed, his face open and sweet in a way that made Eliza want to cry.

She really, really loved this guy.

“Sure,” she managed a rough smile, taking his hand and resting her head on his chest, letting his wiry frame hold her up too.

He guided her carefully to the middle of the room. There was a steady beat of rain on the window pane, one of the almost playful summer showers that had been bursting in and out of existence over the past few days like they were tied to some switch that kept getting leaned on accidentally. It seemed like the only change the weather ever experienced here was what _kind_ of rain came down.

Not that Eliza was complaining, in the last few weeks she’d grown bigger than she’d thought it possible for a human to get and any kind of warmth had become instantly unbearable. The rain and shade was such a relief, a reminder that the world didn’t actually hate her and want her to suffer. Alex had actually found himself relegated to the couch some nights when Eliza just couldn’t stand to have the heat of another against her own, the baby inside her feeling like a little sun burning away underneath the film of her skin. He’d sworn blind he didn’t mind, he only wanted to help, she’d apologised with guilty tears in her eyes that he’d kissed away with his pillow tucked under his arm. But still, he’d discovered that every night he didn’t have her in his arms was full of nothing but nightmares.

That handful of restless, haunted hours was far behind them now. Alex had her in his arms and now, as he let her rock back and forth on the balls of her feet in vague time with the music, he felt like they were finally doing something. It felt purposeful, like action. And in any case, having her impatient heartbeat pressed against his own counted for a lot right now; it was hard to stay scared and anxious and helpless when he had that constant, steady reminder that she was here and she was real and she was his, every bit as much as he was hers. Far more than he would ever belong to himself. Despite that slight irregularity, the offbeat between the supernaturally faster pace of his heart and the slower, surer beat of Eliza’s, there would come a moment in amongst it all when the motion in and out would come exactly in time with one another. Alex’s mother had told him once, in a common Selkie way of trying to explain to a child how they straddled two very different worlds and truly belonged to neither, that Selkie heartbeats moved in time with the pull between the moon and the sea. But human hearts were attuned to the flickering of the sun, the steady pulse of heat energy through space. That gap could never be breached, it was sewn into the fabric of the universe, scribbled in bold on the chalkboard of patterns and equations that ruled a whole civilisation’s understanding.

But as Alex held his wife and swayed carefully with her to their favourite song, as her body fought its silent battle to bring their child into the world, he swore he felt that passing moment where they’d slip into harmonisation. Wavelengths would align and their hearts would beat in perfect synchrony maybe one time in every thirty. But it was enough.

“It was raining on the day I was born, too,” he murmured softly, caught up in the song of the raindrops and his own thoughts.

“Was it?” Eliza was surprised. Alex had yet to offer anything more than abstract scraps about his life before her and even those she’d had to tease out of his poetry, like pulling mismatched threads out of an old jumper. But this was solid fact, given to her to errantly and her curiosity made her lean in for more.

“Yeah,” Alex had a faraway smile on his face, his hands pressed to the small of her back to try and support her aching spine, “It wasn’t a storm exactly but it was raining pretty hard, enough to make the sea swell. Mama said it came up the walls of the cave, this little cavern tucked away along the shoreline of Puerto Rico. And there was birdsong.”

Eliza’s grip on his arm tightened, not with a contraction this time, but with fondness.

“No birdsong here,” she commented weakly, smiling wanly, her sentences coming in snatches in amongst heavy, laboured breaths, “All the birds are hiding away. If they have any sense.”

“We’ve got the next best thing,” Alex chuckled, bobbing his head in the direction of the record player.

Eliza nodded, “Song is song.”

“Song is song,” he echoed back to her, liking that little phrase.

Certainly, not for the first time in his life, Alex wished his mother was with him again. She’d have known exactly what to do right now, with the worrying fact that the pains were building and strengthening, crowding on top of each other and making Eliza buckle, but nothing was happening. Things just seemed to have stalled.

As much as she wanted to avoid it, Eliza was thrown onto his train of thought as Stevie Nicks’ voice was replaced by an almost acidic, awful scratch and hiss, the record’s end.

In the silence that followed, she whispered, “Something’s not right, isn’t it?”

Knowing what she meant and also knowing that lying to her would be wrong and useless, Alex nodded, “We’re just…missing something.”

It did feel like that, like things couldn’t progress until some last puzzle piece fell into place, some disconnected wires were brought close enough together for there to finally be a spark. As he thought, Eliza groaned and sank lower in his arms yet again, shaking and panting and adding a sting of urgency. Alex bit so hard on his lower lip he could taste blood, rubbing her back and trying to soothe her, straining his ears for the sound of the waves outside, that had always helped to calm him when he was anxious and needed to think…

_Ah._

“You trust me, right, baby?” he murmured, cupping Eliza’s pale, sweat worn face in his shaking hands.

Too tired, too exhausted to speak, she just nodded.

“Then let’s get you a blanket…”

-

Eliza did have to remind herself forcefully that yes, she _did_ trust him, when she saw what he was planning.

But as soon as he wrapped her most favourite blanket around her shoulders to help her thin cotton nightdress keep the chill off, the blissfully cooling rain misted on her burning skin and she knelt close enough to the shoreline that there was an oddly soothing, grounding spray of salt against her back, she realised Alex knew exactly what he was doing. Everything clicked into place and deep buried instincts took hold of her, strong enough that she could almost believe she could do this.

There was still pain, of course, an amount so dangerously close to more than Eliza could bear. Her screams and growls must have echoed down the whole beach, permeating the mist like some kind of banshee or twisted version of a siren was haunting the coast. But she was somewhere too far away to notice that she was even screaming, that hours were slipping past like the shifting sand under her hands and knees. All she was aware of was her nerves on fire and Alex’s endless encouragement and the rumbling, regular voice of the sea joining with her husband’s as they both told her that she could do this, she was doing so well, just a little more. At some point Alex started to sing, a song very similar and yet somehow leagues away from the one he sang before. The cadence, the tone, the painfully raw vulnerability of this one told Eliza that this wasn’t a lullaby. It was a love song, one that twisted and roiled and wept and it was all for her. With it, with Alex’s hands and his salt tinged kisses, Eliza managed to stay anchored and focused enough until there was a final rush, a white-hot sunburst behind her eyes and a new voice joined the rest.

Well, not exactly a voice, more of a sound that was on its way to becoming a voice, something stumbling and hesitant and finding its feet. A little snuffling and squeaking that Eliza reached towards with an ache more powerful than anything she’d ever felt before. Alex was sobbing somewhere in the distance, some part of her brain vaguely wondered why, but she was dragged towards this new, warm weight in her arms like her vision, her whole focus in life, was swimming and shifting and resetting to revolve around this new treasure.

“Hello there,” she murmured softly, her voice cracking and snapping with overuse, bringing her baby closer to her face so she could drink in every single detail, “Hey there, little one.”

Warm, amber skin. A damp tangle of dark and full curls, soft and slick like a seal pup’s fur. A gentle heart shaped face, a rosy birthmark on the bridge of a sloping, prominent nose. Full lips upturned in the sweetest smile Eliza had ever seen, no tears or fussing or wailing, just a beautiful, curious smile.

“Oh god, Alex, he’s _perfect_ ,” she broke into sobs, clinging to her newborn son and covering his face with kisses before pulling Alex in towards her and kissing him as hard and as fiercely as her body could manage, hoping that all of the things she felt for him in that moment could come across in their touch because she knew there would never ever be words, on land or sea, for something like this.

From the way Alex wept with raw, almost-too-much-to-carry joy and rested his forehead against her own as his hand joined hers on the top of their son’s head, holding him together, Eliza felt he got the message.

 -

One of the things that surprised and scared Alex most about his new life on land was his deepened capacity for emotion.

Wearing his sealskin, living a life governed by tides and moons and seasons, everything had felt dulled. It was as if the leagues of water dampened more than just sound and light; problems were limited to finding enough food, having a place to hide from the rain and the sharp teeth of whatever was bigger than him. The consequences were dire but the emotions attached were simple and raw, basic desires and ingenuous drives that never broke the colour scheme of the world he lived in. Grey, blue, green, fear, need, pain. It had always been so easy to follow.

But here things were so bright, feelings were so deep and sharp to touch, hard to hold and heavy to carry around all the time. He learned so many new words in such a short space of time by feeling them tear through his heart, making him burst out laughing or cry suddenly with no explanation, double over in shock when he was doing nothing more than standing at the kitchen sink, shudder with almost sickening fear whenever he was bolted out of sleep. How humans had walked around feeling this much, this intensely, since the day they were born, it was beyond him.

And love was the fiercest and most staggering burn he’d felt of any of them. So much that he’d felt afraid over these last months, so many times as he’d lain awake caressing Eliza’s swollen stomach in an effort to calm their baby. He worried that with everything he felt for her, his mate, that there just wouldn’t be enough room in his heart to love this little baby too. That when he finally had them in his arms, he’d just…melt. Break. Shatter from the pressure of trying to hold too much heat, like glass under the heel of just the right note or sandstone crumbling to dust. Surely in Alex, who’d been alone and closed off and cold for so long, just so he could survive, it would be too much. Surely there was a limit to how much one heart could hold?

But from the very first second that Alex felt his hands dip under the weight of his son, an unfamiliar sensation and yet his arms moved to support and cradle and hold like they were made for this alone and nothing else, he discovered what it meant to love someone. What he felt for Eliza was more…preordained. Written into his very DNA, she was his mate, he was hers and loving her came as naturally to him as breathing, the paths of their lives were joined and couldn’t be separated. But with his son, he made a choice. In the first second he held him and watched his dark eyes, ringed with light like there was a spark trapped in their deep blue irises, open and fix on the faces of his parents, Alex made a choice. He loved this little baby, he’d do anything and everything under the sun for him, he’d spend the rest of his life making sure he was safe and happy and protected. It was a long time before he could even breathe, the wonder of it was so great.

He’d laugh about it in the following hours as he helped Eliza to her feet, half carried her back to the house and into the shower and then into bed, their son never leaving the safe nest of her arms, steady and sure no matter how much the rest of her trembled with exhaustion. When his wife, his gorgeous, beautiful, powerful, incredible wife- there would never, ever be enough words in either of their languages to describe what he felt for her after watching her deliver their baby but damn it, he was going to try- had finally had to fall asleep, and he’d been left alone with his son, he laughed. He sat in the chair by the window, watching the raindrops run and join and swell and part across the glass, his son gently cheeping and snuffling and gnawing toothlessly on his shoulder in a whole chorus of questioning and gentle noises that made Alex’s heart swell. It was strange, when their little one had been growing inside Eliza he’d seemed like an enormity, she’d seemed to grow bigger than life itself, a vast island. But now he was here, his own entity, he was just so _small._ Alex could hold him in one palm, if the compulsion hadn’t been to clasp him as tightly as he dared, so light and delicate and precious, making his father think of pieces of sea glass and grass stems and eggshells and bird skulls.

But it wasn’t this odd juxtaposition that made Alex laugh, gently as he could so he didn’t disturb his baby son. Not that he’d cried once since he was born, he seemed just a little too curious about everything around him to cry just yet. No, Alex laughed at the sheer absurdity, how naïve he’d been just a few days ago, to think that he couldn’t love his little son, that there wasn’t room in him to feel it. Alex had learned very quickly, down on the beach in that one second he shifted from just a worried, anxious semi-adult into a father, that humans bodies came equipped with hearts as vast as the ocean he’d spent most of his life in. That the capacity for love held within such unassuming ribs was limitless, a number up there with the amount of stars in the sky, blades of grass on the earth, all the words ever spoken and all that would be spoken across years. A number so big it wasn’t even really a number, it was a concept.

Plenty of room for such a little thing, Alex snorted and chuckled to himself, hitching his son further up his shoulder to a more secure perch. More than enough. They’d discussed names, he and Eliza, who he kept stealing glances over to and being floored every single time by her mere existence, they had a boy’s name chosen and picked out and playfully argued over. Alex had been hesitant to attach it to their little one just yet, to pin it to him while Eliza slept. But it was becoming more and more clear as the moments went by and he avidly drank in every single little movement and snuffle from his son, that no other name was going to fit him quite as well. It was like he’d come out of Eliza wearing it like a badge.

Alex held him gently but securely, as he moved him from his shoulder to his arms so he could see his son’s face, look into his eyes as he murmured,

“I love you, Philip. Your Pops loves you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fatherhood disturbs some old memories of Alex's

“See? I told you he’d have your eyes.”

“Damn. Thought fate would have given the poor kid a break after he got my nose too.”

“Oh, shut up! It looks so sweet, don’t give the little guy a complex.”

“Yeah well, he’s been saved, he’s got your face. Handsome devil.”

“I’d be slightly more worried about the fact he’s got your appetite. And your sleep schedule. And your blabbermouth.”

“God help us all.”

Alex and Eliza loved to play this game, in the early mornings or late evenings or whatever time they found themselves lying side by side on their bed with little Philip on his back and encircled by his parents’ bodies. The conventions of normal time, words like breakfast and noon and dinner and bedtime, had kind of blurred into meaningless ever since they’d had their baby. To the point where Eliza had found Alex putting a pizza in the oven (he’d been given his kitchen privileges back and was actually turning into a very good cook) at two in the morning and had thought nothing of it. It was kind of fun, actually, to not have any ties to structure or schedule, to just float in their own little bubble, them and their little treasure, beholden to nothing and no one but themselves. 

“I don’t quite know where these came from though,” Eliza hummed, gently ruffling Philip’s head of tight, dark brown curls that stuck up after a good night’s sleep and after he’d been doing his favourite activity of rolling around on the floor of his father’s writing room while he worked, and bounced adorably when he got excited or happy or fidgety. Right now, they were fluffed up around his sweet, attentive face as he yawned and fought against his impending nap, to not much avail. But he had his mama and pops right by him, he was warm and smelling all soft and soapy from his recent bath, the room was illuminated with the orange glow that was only ever found in the early evening as day slipped to night. He wasn’t fighting too hard, it was mostly for show.

“I do,” Alex murmured after a few moment’s pause, his eyes fixed on his wife’s fingers gently combing through their baby’s curls in such a gentle and protective gesture.

His guard was down, the simple warmth of the moment pulled the words from where they were living in some sleeping part of his heart and out from between his teeth.

There was weight to his answer, it was obvious and Eliza was careful in asking for more.

“You do?” she breathed quietly, her eyes flickering up to him and back down again, making it clear that he didn’t have to go any further if this is a part of his past he’d decided he doesn’t want to let go of just yet. She never wanted to feel like she was dragging anything out of him.

But, as it happened, Alex gave it freely, perhaps after an increasingly sleepy Philip reached up and took hold of his father’s finger as it hovered over him, clutching at him for a little comfort as he drifted. That gave Alex the gentle little shove he needed.

“My mother’s hair was like that,” he whispered into the heavy curtain of sundown draped across the room, “She had curls exactly like that. I guess they skip a generation.”

Eliza tried not to show too much of the bolt of surprise that went through her at Alex’s whispered explanation. She tried.

But Alex only gave her a wry little smile, he couldn’t exactly blame her for being shocked.

“You…you saw your mother in her human form?”

Alex didn’t look at her, his eyes were fixed on some point above her head though she had a feeling it wasn’t the wall hanging he was seeing, the one she’d been spending her lazy early motherhood days crocheting, when she wasn’t making little Pip new cardigans and hats and socks (he got them dirty very easily, he was a big fan of knocking things over onto himself and whichever of his parents or aunts were in reach; he was making quite a sport of it).

No, something every different, something from far away and another time was reflected in his dark pupils.

“I did,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, barely seeming to notice as Philip began to lazily gnaw on his finger, “She was a human for a while actually. Two, maybe three years. I-I don’t keep time so well when I’m…”

The slightly panicked gasping that overtook his voice, stealing the end of his sentence, terrified Eliza and she scrambled to bring him back, cursing herself for ruining their perfect evening by pushing for information.

“Baby, it’s okay, you don’t have to…sweetie, please, deep breaths.”

Alex followed her direction, shaking his head. Even Philip started to cheep softly, his little face mirroring his mother’s concern in a kind of way. He slobbered on his father’s finger even more, mewling around it, like that was his way of helping.

“No, it’s okay, it’s just been a while since I thought about this,” Alex’s eyes grew more far away but his breathing eased and he regained his voice, “It’s kind of…um, the memories aren’t so good? Like they’re…damaged. I guess because I was young and…different brain, kind of.”

Eliza shifted closer to Alex, one of her legs snaking around his, bridging the gap between them in a simple gesture but, in the language of their marriage, it meant a lot.

A shadow cast itself over her husband’s face but it was the brush of her thigh on his and the gentle babbling of Pip, a noise that was quickly becoming a welcome part of the background of their lives, it was these that helped him keep talking.

“I was only small, maybe nine? Ten?” he looked like he was really struggling to drag the correct facts out of the fog in his brain, like there really was some wall dividing his life now and his life then that he couldn’t quite reach over to see what was real, like all he had were the snatches of past conversations he could overhear. Or not a wall, not exactly. A surface of thick, muffling water.

“Small, anyhow. And it was one of the worst winters I think we’d ever seen. Had to travel too far to get too little food, it was freezing, storms…”

Eliza shivered, he said it so matter-of-factly, like such suffering was just a factor of whatever life he’d been living. She tried to imagine having to carry her son through an existence like that, knowing that they were surrounded by so many potential slips and stumbles and staggers that would just take her baby from her. Just like that. Without a thought. Just another casualty of nature.

“What was her name?” she found herself asking, wanting to have a way to think of this woman she was feeling such heavy, constricting empathy for.

“Rachel,” Alex’s mouth seemed to struggle with the shape of the word. Like it had more meaning than he could really cope with.

“Rachel,” Eliza bore the burden of the name with him, slipping under it with an easier, more awed tone, to help him hold it up.

Alex nodded, “And she…we ended up somewhere near the coast of South America, we’d used pretty much the last of our strength to get us to warmer waters. I remember…” his expression tightened, the sour memories bleeding across his tongue, “I can remember feeling her ribs poking through her fur while I slept against her.”

Eliza blinked, absorbing that awful image of a child having to watch his mother wasting away. She didn’t need Alex to tell her that his younger self had felt those hard bones press into his back, harsh and uncomfortable, but nowhere near as much so as the knowledge that the bones were likely there because his mother was giving him most of her share as well as his own.

Another thought surfaced, along the back of that one. She remembered the way Alex always seemed to glory in the fullness of her body, kneading where her thighs and hips and calves curved outwards, feeling the softness there as they made love with a kind of rapture. All the parts of her that made her cringe when she caught sight of them in the shower, in the fogged-up mirror as she changed, Alex would bury his face against them and murmur how beautiful they were, how gorgeous, like they were his favourite parts of her. She’d blush and smile and cling to every word.

And now Eliza was starting to understand a little more.

“So,” Alex went on, his usually animated and bouncing voice, a thread of a million tones and inflections, now flat and quiet like he was recounting one of the uncomfortable and grim parts of history not taught in schools, “She decided that the best way, the  _ only  _ way was to shed her skin and get some food from in town, steal or beg or charity or…whatever, I don’t know. All she knew was that there was no food in the sea, so she had to look elsewhere.”

Eliza nodded, assuring him that she was still listening even when she didn’t know quite what to say. Even Philip’s murmuring quietened, like he was listening to his daddy’s story.

“She made me the best nest she could in a small crag in the rocks near the shore. She told me to wait there and she would come back after no more than two night falls. She was only going into the local town, not far. She…she  _ promised.” _ His voice wavered and caught on some snag. Like a child still feeling the sting of a broken promise from someone they trusted.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza bit her lower lip, feeling his pain passed like an electric charge from his skin to her own.

“A man saw her. He took her skin,” Alex now looked angry, the shadow morphing into something more like a storm cloud, “Just like in the stories, he took her skin…”

It was obvious in the way he spoke that what this man did was on a level almost unspeakable, a bitter and vicious crime that shouldn’t even occur to the mind of someone sentient and respectable, let alone happen. Eliza felt a small click in the base of her brain, two pieces of information snapping together. This happened in the legends she’d read about Selkies, before she’d known they were true. They all spoke of Selkie ladies held prisoner on land by lecherous men who locked their magic pelts away, like ripping the very heart out of them, stranding them in a land where they didn’t belong all for the sake of some twisted and warped idea of love that was actually possession in a cruel disguise.

“Oh no,” she murmured, a hand flying to her mouth.

Alex looked like a man tasting acid, “That…that fucker held her prisoner for so long, she tried to many times to escape but he’d always catch her and…hurt her. When she finally made it back to me, she was covered in bruises and her teeth, he’d knocked out her  _ teeth _ , Eliza…”

Tears were stinging her eyelids, she didn’t want to weep openly in case she scared little Pip but God, this was hard to hear.

“I’d given up hope of ever seeing her again,” Alex seemed unable to stop, even now as his voice cracked and wobbled, “I waited and waited but she never…she never came, I was so close to starving…I have no idea how I survived, fighting I guess, scavenging off gulls. I stayed near the coastline because I kept hoping, even after so long I’d lost count.”

Eliza closed her eyes, heart hammering, not sure how much more she could stand to listen to.

“But then one day she did come back,” his eyes settled, just a little, “Like she’d promised but…everything was different. We were both covered in scars, she was never the same, I was never the same. It changed everything.”

“Oh,” Eliza mumbled, her voice thick.

“We never went near another human place after that. Every time she heard anything that even  _ sounded  _ like his voice, she panicked and we had to move. Mama always thought he’d keep looking for her, wherever we went. We stuck to the open water. She thought we were safe there until…”

Eliza didn’t want to ask him for more but she knew she had to. This was a wound she needed to leech, it had been festering for too long, she could tell. After this, she could help him stitch it up and things would get better.

“Until what?” she whispered.

“Until the boat,” Alex answered, his voice clipped, “We didn’t know they’d extended their fishing route so far, we thought we were out of there way but one day there they were. It was me they caught, the net was like barbed wire, it made me bleed.”

A cold and sharp realisation lanced through Eliza, “Is that…?” A shaky hand reached out, gently indicating the white, faded line of an old scar that had bisected her Alex’s right eye for as long as she’d known him. She had no idea what forged the connection in her mind, that scar had always just been one feature of many, part of the landscape of the face of the man she loved. She’d never given it much thought but she saw it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, she knew before Alex gave his sad, quiet nod of answer.

Eliza made a small, strangled noise, reaching out and running his finger carefully along the line of the scar tenderly, like she could brush it and the horrible trauma it represented away. Or, if not that, at least reassure him that now it was nothing more than a healed mark, something she loved.

“They wanted my pelt,” Alex shuddered, feeling like he was working his thumb against a scab that held nothing but endless beads of blood underneath, “They wanted to rip it off me, hang it from some wall, throw it on the floor just because it was beautiful and it was mine and they wanted it. Humans are always like that just taking for the sake of taking.” His voice snapped and Eliza winced.

“But mama, she vaulted over the side of the boat after me, she attacked the one who was holding the knife to my neck, she bit and she clawed at them, half out of her own skin…I’ve never heard screams like that…I thought for a moment she could win but…”

His bottom lip was now shaking so hard his words were almost nonsense but it was almost like Eliza could hear them in her own mind, past his hitching breaths.

“I went over the side, someone’s boot in my ribs. I couldn’t swim for a while, I just sank. And when I got my mind back, the boat was gone. And…”

The end of the sentence didn’t seem to be coming, Eliza moved to hold him and reassure him that it was okay, he didn’t need to say it. But then the words broke free in such a broken, distraught gasp that gave way to tears like a cave crumbling in on itself that Eliza couldn’t move.

“ _ And there wasn’t even enough left of her pelt for me to keep.” _

Eliza tried not to disturb Philip as she climbed over to Alex’s side of the bed. Fortunately, the little baby had nodded off during Alex’s story, curled up hugging the pillow that smelled of his mama. Eliza couldn’t help but pray that he’d nodded off before the end of Alex’s story. One of the good intentions that paved the way to hell, perhaps, but she couldn’t help but hope. Part of motherhood, she was realising, was clinging to every single second where she could continue to protect her son from most of the world, whether that was the right decision or not.

For more than a few moments, Eliza was terrified that Alex had slipped away too far for her to reach but after a few minutes of stroking his hair and murmuring through her own tears that he was safe, his memories where just that, past pain that could hurt but not finish him, he was back to himself. The tears eventually ran out, the trembling stopped and he was left just clinging to his wife and taking deep, shaking breaths. But he was here.

“Oh Alex, baby, I’m so, so sorry,” Eliza whispered, the words sounding so painfully weak and watery, powerless against the scars he carried.

“No,” he murmured, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes to try and take the sting of drying tears away, “No, I n-needed to tell you…t-tell someone…been holding onto that for too long.”

Eliza sighed gently, climbing off him carefully and taking his hands, drawing him over to the window seat, the one she’d purposefully piled high with blankets and cushions so Alex could perch there on the nights he couldn’t sleep so he could watch the sea rolling and thrumming its endless rhythm out on the beach. That never failed to calm him down. And it worked now, he sighed with all the relief of a man seeing the calm, still skies beyond the storm clouds, pulling his knees to his chest and letting the panicked energy run out of his eyes like watercolours, forehead resting against the slightly warped glass. Eliza sat across from him, her legs filling the spaces his left, her expression loving and heartbroken and worried all at once.

Words weren’t necessary for a while, the mostly silent room broken up only by the quiet snuffling of their baby son, blissfully asleep and unaware, the near constant rattling of the cottage’s old pipes that they barely even registered anymore and the muffled voice of the sea, that all said more than either of them could. Somewhere in the middle of it, Alex’s hand found Eliza’s and after five minutes had still not relaxed or let go.

“I’m glad,” his voice was quiet and crackling but Eliza heard it.

“Oh?” she blinked at him through the gloom, only just realising that the sunset had shifted into night while they’d been distracted. Their bedroom was suddenly very dark, the moonlight the only thing that sliced through the shadows.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, finally tearing his gaze away from the sea and back to her, “I’m really glad he has her hair. I wouldn’t want her to be forgotten, I want…I want some part of her to still be here.”

Eliza could understand, she gave him a proud, small smile, squeezing his hand and nodding.

“She gave her life for me, I can’t try and forget her. It’s just not fair, the way I tried to push it all away,” he shook his head, guilt straining the edges of his mouth and eyes.  

“Alex, no,” Eliza moved forward, “Baby, don’t think like that. Look at everything you’ve done; how much you’ve made of the life she gave you. She would be so, so proud.”

Alex looked hopeful but uncertain, “Really?”

Eliza nodded, firm, “I know it.”

He pressed his lips together and looked over to where their son slept, curled up in the middle of the vastness of their bed, snoring in perfect contentment. He looked back to Eliza, his sweet, beautiful Eliza who’d given him her heart.

His family. Small and a little strange but his.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, talking more to himself than anyone else, “Yeah, I think she would be proud of me.”

-

Watching Philip grow was a wonder.

Sometimes Eliza would be leaning against the counter in the kitchen, a quiet moment at the beginning of the day or the end, seemingly always with the sun half covered by the horizon in some respect but no less warming. She’d be feeding Philip, something she always loved doing, holding him so close to her skin and having his hungry little snuffling against her and his hand tracing the line of her collarbone as if for comfort. And she’d think how big he was getting, how his eyes seemed so aware and intelligent as he took in everything around him. She’d notice how he was a little heavier than the last time he fed, a little longer in her arms, his hair a little wilder, actually brushing his eyebrows. Her little man, her little ray of sunshine was growing up.

And didn’t that just break her heart in the best way.

Pip took his first steps a week or so into his sixth month. He woke up one lazy Saturday morning in his mama’s arms, exactly where he loved to be when he first opened his eyes, but where was Pops? Mama explained, through a yawn as she rolled over and hid from the truth of the alarm clock in her nest of blankets, that Pops was taking a shower after his morning run along the beach and would be back in just a few minutes. Pip could tell she was right, he could hear his Pops singing that song from the mermaid film he loved so much, the one the funny red crab sang. That was Pops’ bath time song. But Philip wasn’t great at waiting, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Eliza had dozed off within a minute though Alex’s cry of surprise definitely woke her up, he reached a pretty damn high volume. Apparently, Philip had taken it upon himself to stumble on over to the bathroom himself, wanting to see his daddy  _ now,  _ not realising that Alex was going to hit the roof when there was suddenly another, babbling, quiet little voice singing Under the Sea along with him.

It was Philip’s turn to be confused when Mama and Pops suddenly started crying and laughing and hugging him.

Not that he minded of course.

 

His first word was a little debatable, on whether you thought animal noises constituted a word. A favourite nickname of Alex’s for his son was his ‘little lion cub’. Probably because he was noise, probably because of his fluffy mane-like cloud of hair, probably because most nights he could be found sat on his father’s lap while Alex read one of the many books he treasured all the more for their tattered edges and scuffed leather covers, his favourites being the ones about flora and fauna from far off places he’d never been to. One of their best games, the one that made Eliza laugh the most as she watched them fondly from the wingback she always sat in to sew, was Pip poking at the illustrations on the page with a pudgy finger and Alex dutifully, enthusiastically, imitating the noise it made. And Philip’s very favourite, the one he chose to point at most often out of all the meticulous, hand sketched plates Alex liked to imagine had been done by some glasses wearing, lined faced scholar while tropical storms battered the canvas of their tent, was the roaring, almost regal looking lion. More often than any other, he’d be chuckling so hard and beaming so wide that he nearly fell to the floor as his Pops hooked his fingers into paws and bared his teeth, snarling fit to beat the big old lion that came on sometimes before the movie started, with the swelling music, and made Pip jump.

So really, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise on the afternoon that Alex scooped Philip up from the floor, where he was building the biggest tower of blocks he could possibly make, simply for the pleasure of knocking it down again, explaining that it was time for lunch.

“Come on,” Alex smiled gently, trying not to laugh at Philip’s crinkled, cloudy little face at having his game interrupted, kissing at his nose until he was smiling again, “You must be hungry by now, my little lion cub.”

Pip blinked, his face breaking into one of his sunny smiles, the ones that stretched nearly the whole width of his face and turned his eyes into sparkling dark chips of opal. He lifted his hands and crooked them into claws and pulled his lips back from his teeth, more than a few gaps between them, and gave a loud growl.

_ “Rrrrrrrrrrawr!” _

Alex nearly dropped him he was so surprised but seconds after that he started laughing, utterly delighted, heart pounding with the realisation that the very purpose of his son’s first words had been to make him laugh. Eliza got a demonstration as soon as she came home from work, swinging him around in her arms and peppering his cheeks with so many kisses that there were plum coloured lipstick marks over nearly every part of his face and he was giggling breathlessly.

After that the words came thick and fast, ‘mama’ and ‘pops’ in almost the same breath, ‘birdie’ for the rather tuneless coughing of the gulls outside his bedroom window, ‘sticky’ for the way the sand clung to his little starfish hands when he’d eagerly bury them in the ground on his and Pops’ morning walks, ‘Legs’ for the stuffed giraffe he’d been given the day he was born and remained his most treasured toy right up until he was sixteen and still kept him on his bedside table, huffing if anyone dared move him.

That was like the floodgates opening. After that, it felt like Pip grew several inches every single day, he got everywhere on his own two legs, he started wearing little woolly jumpers and cord trousers rather than his onesies and dungarees, he chattered away in full sentences. And every single day that passed Eliza and Alex only grew more in love with him, their little boy who had been such a surprise but now they weren’t sure how they’d ever lived without him.

To the two of them, it was honestly a bit of a surprise that it took until one night a few weeks after Philip’s first birthday, when Alex and Eliza were cooking dinner, moving around each other and their tiny kitchen in a complex, polyrhythmic dance that they were well practised in, though always taking a few moments’ break to watch Philip plod around the garden in his brand new rain boots, peering into the dew soaked clumps of grass for snails with broken shells or bits missing in some way or another that he could carefully pick up and carry back to the waiting bucket full of leaves and soil, with the words ‘Snail Hospital’ carefully printed on one side in Eliza’s neat penmanship.

Alex made a small, fond noise of surprise as he found Eliza’s arms wrapping around his middle, her forehead pressed to the space between the blades of his shoulders. He had a feeling he knew why, she’d been watching their son with an expression close to happy tears for a while now.

“Hey,” she murmured, her breath warm on his ever-chill skin.

“Hello there,” Alex smiled back, not picking the knife he’d been slicing mushrooms with back up again, getting the sense that she wanted his attention.

He could almost feel her smile against his back. Her hands went wandering, sliding down to follow the narrow valley of his hips, sending warmth forking through his muscles wherever her hands brushed. That warmth had potential, he could feel it clear and acknowledged as hairs standing on end.

“I can hear you thinking,” he hummed, tone light and conversational, his own smile growing.

“I might be,” Eliza replied in the same voice.

“Well, are you gonna share?” he chuckles, “Cos I’ve got to get these in the rice or they won’t cook in time. So, y’know, talk or let me earn my keep.”

Eliza chose to duck under his self-deprecating humour, putting a slight shift in her body, some trick of the magnetism that ran between the two of them to compel him to lift his eyes to their little Philip, his head now entirely lost inside a clod of ammophila, nothing but his back half showing as he risked life and limb to rescue a slug that had become stuck upside down.

“Alexander?” Eliza murmured, kissing his back gently.

“Yeah, honey?”

“What would you say to having another one of those things?” she whispered.

There was a moment of confusion in Alex’s mind, before they watched Pip’s head reappear from the grass, soaking wet and with clumps of mud in his curls but the satisfied smile of a job well done, and he realised what she meant.

He felt all of the breath leave him, like it had been knocked out of him by her words alone. All he could do was find her hands with his own, wrapping their fingers together and squeezing tight, blinking back tears.

Eliza grinned, holding his hands back just as tight. She had her answer in the way she heard his breath catch and his teeth snag his lower lip and his eyelids flutter. She knew what he’d say before he made his emotion laden tongue work.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, “I’d be up for that.”

It could be said, after that evening, in the years following their quiet conversation in the kitchen, Alex and Eliza became a little addicted. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip starts to grow up

Usually, while Eliza was at work and Alex was left in charge of Philip, he’d set him down in the little nest of blankets and pillows he’d constructed underneath his writing desk with some snacks and a substantial pile of storybooks, colours, blocks and Legs of course, the most important item, to nap and play and read as much as his little heart desired, knowing his Pops was right there above him if he needed anything. It would always make Alex smile more than a little, to be in the middle of transferring some prose that some academics were starting to worry was drug induced from his brain to the keys of the typewriter the man behind the desk at the antique store had let him have for a steal, seeing as the belt needed realigning. From there, the mechanism and ink would do as it would, beyond Alex’s control, either neatly and succinctly stamping out the scholastically fascinating contents of his brain or emitting a horrible shriek and burp of protest, sticking in any number of ways and usually dribbling ink down onto poor Philip’s little feet, necessitating Alex to take a break from being the postmodern nouveau poet so many literary magazines claimed him to be, instead sitting on the floor with a screwdriver between his teeth, unspooled paper clips in his hair ready for action and ink staining his fingers beyond the reach of less than five thorough showers.

But still he’d smile, whenever he’d be in the midst of it all, tapping some place of himself that had become muffled since he started walking on two legs, mining some deeper reaches of his soul that he was always careful to go anywhere near because the glimmering in its depths could sometimes be diamond and sometimes be broken glass, because even as he sighed and rubbed his aching fingers, he’d feel Philip’s warmth and comforting weight wrap around his legs, settle on his foot.

“Bounce please, Pops,” he’d chirrup happily.

And Alex would smile no matter how hard he’d been working, no matter what angry, brooding memories were making themselves known, he’d rock his leg, bouncing his little boy on his leg, usually with a raspy but cheery murmur of, “Blast off!”

And the slightly musty office, no matter how many times he opened a window, would ring with his bubbling laughter, usually followed by his father’s, a little wearier but no less happy.

Philip would never tell his Pops, it felt like too heavy a thing to just throw into casual conversation and the moment would never really feel right, but from those lazy days of his early childhood, Pip would always associate the heavy whirr and smack of a typewriter, the taste of peanut butter eaten straight from the jar, the acrid smell of ink, the words of A.A. Milne and the soft hum of the record player, though only on Fridays, with some of the happiest and warmest times of his entire life. 

This only made it more of a shock, more of an affront, when the peace was disturbed one day.

Alex knew he and Pip wouldn’t get much more days like this. Soon Eliza would be taking her maternity leave and then soon after that the new baby would be here and the times to uncover some peace and quiet with his little boy would be few and far between.

So, when the first throaty roar of thunder made Pip squeak in fright from under the desk and made Alex’s fingers on the keys stumble so the word ‘shark’ became ‘sharpkm’ (which didn’t quite have the same feel to it and completely murdered his iambic pentameter), his first reaction was one of annoyance.

_ Oh, fuck off,  _ his thoughts directed bitterly and the oncoming storm that he could now smell and feel in the hollows of his bones, he’d been too distracted by work and Philip to notice it before,  _ of course you had to come along and ruin one of the last days. Go on and fuck yourself. _

He was only thinking it so virulently because he’d wanted to take Philip down to the beach later, make sandcastles and play chicken with the incoming wave and make believe pirates or mermaids until they saw Eliza come walking over the crest of the hill, walking carefully and with one hand resting underneath the bulge in her coat, so they could run to her and greet her like always.

That’s all he’d been thinking. But, as it happened, his spitting at the storm turned out to be rather prophetic.

The first flash of lightning had passed them by but this one broke through their refuge, strong enough to negate the soft glow of the lamp and turn the world to a photographic negative for a heartbeat. It’s partner, the thunder, came soon after, as much of an assault on the ears as the lightning had been on the eyes.

“Oh no,” Alex sighed, trying to lighten his tone, trying to pretend that he couldn’t taste the burning rising in his throat, he’d been getting so much better at controlling it recently, he couldn’t let go, he couldn’t, not in front of Pip…

When he heard the tinny, terrified sobbing, he’d thought at first that his breathing exercises and anxiety management had failed him, like it had sometimes before, his body’s terror had broken through the walls he tried to hastily throw up and the tears had come without his knowledge.

But no, he realised, after a heartbeat’s worth of vertigo, his eyes were dry. It was Philip who was sobbing. Alex ducked under to see him curled up in as tight a ball as his little body could be made to form, hands bunched up tight in his curls, Legs crushed desperately in between his knees and his chest, skin a petrifying sallow pale, what could be seen of his face was shiny and wet.

Alex had always found the phrase ‘broken hearted’ to be a funny one. Hearts weren’t made of glass or porcelain or clay, nothing that could be broken. Hearts were meat and sinew, if anything they tore. They bruised. They throbbed with pain but they didn’t break.

Seeing his little Philip like this, Alex saw the truth in that phrase. Meat or not, it felt as if his heart had been shattered so viciously that nothing was left but dust. Like glass in too hot a kiln, burst into a million jagged parts.

“Oh,” he tried not to cry too obviously but that was an impossibility, “Oh Pip, buddy, it’s okay. It’s okay!”

But Philip seemed unable to hear him, all he cared about was the new flash of lightning and fresh litany of thunder roars, making him tremble all over like a cornered animal, clap his arms over his ears and scream thinly into the noise.

Alex remembered the night, the one that really didn’t seem all that long ago but looking at the size of Pip now it must have been an eternity ago, surely, he’d never been so small he could fit inside Eliza? But Alex remembered how even held in the safety of her body, poor Philip had panicked and writhed at the storm. It didn’t look like he’d been able to shed his fear in the nearly two years since.

But this time Alex could get to his son, he wasn’t in some abstract plane of half existence, he was here and Alex wasted no time in reaching below the desk, pulling Philip into his arms, rocking him.

“Shhh, Pip, I promise, it’s only a storm,” he murmured, fretfully as his hysterics continued, “It’s out there and we’re in here and it can’t hurt us, I swear. Oh buddy…”

Philip’s sobbing continued like it was never going to let up, clutching his cloth giraffe so tightly that his knuckles went white.

Sometimes Alex didn’t think any of his Selkie blood had touched his son. He just looked like a normal little boy, a sweet thing with big eyes and an easy smile like any well loved and protected human child, only having inherited his father’s nose and coppery skin. But every now and again he’d be sharply reminded.

This was one of those times. In every harsh, furious flare of lightning, his baby’s eyes would look almost totally black, animalistic, the shadows that fell across his face could be mistaken for whiskers almost, for the length of a terrified heartbeat, his teeth seemed to sharpen almost on sight, refracting the glare in a way no human tooth, no tooth that wasn’t filed to a point, would, his face shape seemed…wrong.

Alex gave a low, tortured moan, showing no revulsion though he couldn’t promise that he didn’t feel any, he couldn’t tell. All he did was bundle Philip closer to him, pressing his lips to his clammy forehead, stroking his mussed-up curls, whispering that it would be okay, it would, nothing here could hurt him. His Pops would protect him.

But he didn’t believe him. 

That hurt a hell of a lot more than he wanted to admit.

Alex tried every trick he knew to soothe his little boy, making Legs talk in the cheery, high pitched little voice that usually had Pip giggling away, bouncing his curls, pulling faces. He even kissed the bridge of his nose in light, flurrying pecks, right over the little birthmark that looks as if someone had splattered a little strawberry juice or plum flesh over his son’s little face. He remembered how Pip used to wonder how the mark had gotten there, standing on the little step in the bathroom so he could reach the sink and brush his teeth, looking in the mirror and rubbing at it with a confused expression. The explanation Alex had carefully chosen to give him (having no idea how birthmarks formed in the first place) was that silly Pops must have kissed him too many times in one place when he was an even littler thing than he was now, staining that little patch of skin with too much love. Eliza had snorted into her teacup when she’d heard this, involuntarily of course, requiring a sharp look from Alex not to blow this for him, please. But Philip had puffed up his chest like the pride flooding there had been a physical thing, taking up too much room to be contained in what space there was in his little ribcage. Since then, Philip had always requested kisses on his birthmark, like it was some special place, a mark of affection right there on his skin.

Alex had realised a few days later that he’d lied to his son.

He’d been lying in bed on top of the covers, naked and sweating slightly, with Eliza tangled around his body, resting her head on his chest while his thumb stroked along the line of her eyebrow tenderly, hazily examining the trail of his own birthmarks, the ones that blotched his hips and ran a trail right down to his ankle, the ones that pattered along his spine to end at the juncture of his thighs (the ones Eliza always teased him were her little landing strip). He’d been wondering in a listless, vague kind of way, demoting the thoughts to a back part of his brain while the rest concentrated more on the frankly delicious taste still lingering in his mouth and the press of Eliza’s breasts against his side and, as the way often goes, it was this back, dim part of the brain that produced the revelation.

Something had always nagged him about his birthmarks. And he saw it then, finally. They corresponded perfectly, to an exact far too precise to just be a quirk of happenstance, to the dapples and patches of darker fur that decorated his coat in another body.  

The link, small and almost unnoticed by him but there all the same, had sent something cold and skittering running through his tendons and sinews.

But even that paled in comparison to the realisation that came now, in the moment he held his terrified, shaking son while the storm roared at them.  

Philip’s birthmark. Alex knew in that moment that it was no normal collection of abnormal pigment cells (he’d looked it up later). He knew that somewhere, on the pelt that Philip didn’t have but could have, if he wanted it, if Alex could face what needed to be done, there would be a darker patch of fur on the hood that, when swept around his little boy’s shoulders, would transfer to a blotch of black or maybe blue or maybe even white on the muzzle.

Alex recoiled from the thought. He didn’t want to imagine Philip having a muzzle. He didn’t want to imagine him with a pelt. He didn’t want to imagine him feeling the pull of the sea, slipping his own pelt around him, changing, becoming like liquid and then solidifying, swimming away into some dark, jagged horizon. Beyond the reach of him or Eliza.

He couldn’t bear the thought. He couldn’t bear the thought of it happening, or the thought of him enabling it, as he knew he would if it were asked of him. Those kinds of instincts were buried too deep to fight against.

But it might just kill him to do it.

Alex found himself hugging Philip even tighter. He knew what he’d done to soothe him last time the storms had caused such a fright in him, the words to the song that had settled him were ready and waiting, curled around his brain like a dozing snake. But it was like he couldn’t quite make the motion to let them loose, he couldn’t take that jump. Like it was something poisonous in the truest sense, like it would only help to make the imaginary divide between him and his son turn as real and as impassable as it was in his nightmares.

He waited a beat too long. He was so close but as he parted his lips, another, somehow stronger and more livid burst of lightning filled the room, like whatever point such grim explosions originated from was only drawing nearer and nearer, until it would get so close as to consume them completely. Philip screamed louder, so loud that in the flash he looked like the Edvard Munch painting that had unnerved Alex so much when he first came across it all those years ago in Eliza’s room at her parents’ beach house, in one of the many art history books she loved, that he’d shut the book immediately and set a potted plant on top of it, as if to prevent that misshapen creature, who he both was disgusted by and identified with to the same degree, from climbing out. In this stunned moment of Alex’s, Philip’s blind panic took over his little limbs and suddenly he wasn’t in his father’s arms at all but falling, propelled by pure fear, landing on the carpet and fleeing from the room as fast as he could. Which was faster than any fully human three year old would have managed.

“Pip!” Alex yelped in shock, and a little bit hurt, “Pip, no!”

Philip wasn’t sure where exactly he was running to, he couldn’t hear his Pops’ voice over the alarm bells in his ears. All he did know was that the horror chasing him was  _ there  _ so he needed to be  _ not there.  _ Wherever that was, wherever the lights and the roars couldn’t reach him.

He didn’t know where to go, the light just seemed to be everywhere, up every wall, in every usually shadowed corner, even in the red, veined space behind his eyes. It hurt every single part of him, too loud, too bright, too angry, too  _ everything.  _ And there was nowhere he could go to get away from it, he was just running further into it with every corner he turned.

But then he heard the sea.

 

Alex threw himself into the hallway but Philip was already gone. But gone which way, this cottage was a relic, a maze of sharp turns and un-sanded floors? Alex cursed sharply under his breath, calling, “Philip! Pip, buddy, come on, everything’s okay. Please don’t do this…”

He went to his room, the one he’d insisted on taking because it would be next to the new baby’s room and he wanted to keep an eye on his little sibling in case they couldn’t sleep. But he wasn’t there, not in the little hammock Alex had rigged up for him with an old sheet and some rope, not wrapped up in the blanket Eliza had made for him, stitched with lions, naturally. Alex ran down the hall, panic now throbbing through his veins like his blood was suddenly almost too thick to flow properly. But Philip wasn’t in the bathroom either, he loved his baths and showers, it was like he couldn’t get enough of the water but he wasn’t there now. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room, as Alex checked each room and each time he saw no Philip, the panic rose to almost choking levels. He was silently begging gods he’d only ever read about in books that he wouldn’t suddenly stumble across the front door wide open, a window cracked or so many of the increasingly hideous ideas that were clamouring for space in his brain.

One last room, one last chance.

Alex hadn’t thought Pip would go to his and Eliza’s room, he’d been going through a phase of being a ‘big grown up boy’ and apparently big grown up boys didn’t need to come running to their mama and Pops’ room.

But clearly such laws of nature didn’t apply during storms, Alex heard Philip’s hitching sobs from behind the door that never fully closed because it was warped and because either Alex or Eliza had been thrown against it one too many times.

Alex was caught between wanting to cling to Philip desperately and having to force himself to give his little boy space, crowding him would only push him away further. He pushed back the door slowly, immediately getting to his hands and knees, keeping low and quiet, shutting the door behind him so the storm could stay on the other side. Hopefully.

“Pip?” he called softly, he could hear the broken little whimpers and sniffles coming from behind the other side of the bed, “Philip, I’m sorry, I know you’re scared but it’s okay. It’s only the weather, just rain and wind. You like the rain, remember? There’ll be puddles, after, we can go splash in puddles…”

Alex could hear how thin and reedy with stress his own voice was, so far from the gentle, comforting tone he wanted. God, he wasn’t built for this, where was Eliza? He couldn’t even comfort his own son…

“M’scared, Pops,” he heard Philip’s voice, he couldn’t believe the miserable croak came from the little boy he knew, the one with the sun in his voice that always seemed to make Alex feel a little warmer. A little bit of a better person.

“Oh no, Philip…” Alex looked around the edge of the bed, not caring about his qualifications to deal with this anymore, he had to  _ try  _ at least.

He stopped dead, recoiling a little in spite of himself.

“Philip…”

He’d thought the chest had been locked. In fact, he knew it was, it had been him that locked it, a week ago when an argument with a stressed, tired and hormonal Eliza had put the wanderlust back in his heart. He’d felt it; the stirring, the whispering in his ear like the ringing aftershock of an explosion. It always rose in the moments he was at his lowest, telling him that he wasn’t supposed to be here, he didn’t belong, it would be better for everyone if he just left. But, like always, he’d fought it. He’d gone and clicked shut the padlock that had come with the old trunk but was rarely necessary, hissing in pain as it had shut and nipped his thumb, making blood bead there. He’d sucked at the wound, tasting the salt and feeling better for it. It wasn’t seawater in his veins. Just blood. Only blood. He’d left the room, key kept as always in Eliza’s jewellery box, he’d gone and apologised to his wife, been apologised to in turn, hugged and kissed and comforted. And he’d forgotten the whole thing.

But that chest had been locked, it definitely had been locked.

And yet despite the evidence of the fading scar on his right thumb and the remembered ghostly tang of blood on his tongue, there Philip was, wrapped in his father’s sealskin like it was his safety blanket, like it was a talisman keeping back the storm.

A bone deep shiver made itself known in him, a hollowing at the pit of his stomach, as he watched Philip run his little fingers over the fur, the way he stroked his little cloth giraffe. He noted with a sick feeling, rather than anything close to relief, that his little boy’s fear was fading the further he retreated into the skin. The colour was coming back to his ashy face, his curls were even lifting a little, his eyes were turning back to their usual brightness. There was another growl of thunder from behind the heavy curtains and the door, the storm a threatening presence right on top of them, and Philip didn’t even notice.

Anything Alex had seen in that terrifying split second, in the glare of the lightning, was far away. Almost like he could believe it had never been there.

But Alex was only feeling worse.

“I can hear the sea, Pops,” his voice was only bewildered now, a little awed, back to sounding like a child rather than a cornered animal. There was even a smile growing, “It’s  _ here!” _

Alex tried to smile back, trying to share his enthusiasm even as the sound of the blood pounding through his temples in a panicked rush made him nauseated.

He could hear the sea too. Of course he could, his pelt was right there. Wrapped around his son. Every note of the low, ancient song that was currently echoing through Philip’s ears, Alex heard it too. He wondered if Philip was realising where his lullabies came from, where the affectionate words his Pops would whisper to him to calm him down came from, where his own love of collecting the smooth pebbles that fringed the beach came from, where his little quirk of always getting sleepy when it rained, like the sound itself soothed him. Alex wondered.

He  _ feared  _ that Philip was realising where he belonged. Not in his father’s arms. In a seal pelt.

Alex opened his mouth, to do or say what he had no idea. Anything. Anything at all that would get the thing away from him, back in the box where no one could get at it, where Philip could forget about it, never wonder, never feel caught between two worlds, pulled between two species like his father was. To keep him here.

No.

Alex shook himself, his jaw snapping shut with a sense of finality. The dry, resolute sound of a difficult decision being made.

Philip was happy. He wasn’t scared anymore. That was what Alex was supposed to want, whatever the cost. The guilt won out over the fear.

“That mean old storm can’t get you in here, can it?” he managed a wan smile, “All safe and sound.”

Philip, looking like someone swimming in a pool of silver wrapped up in the cloak of skin that was much too big for him, brightened and nodded like his father’s words were confirmation of what he’d hoped. He freed his hands, reaching for Alex, wanting him to come and join him under this amazing magic blanket he’d just found, exactly like they did on Saturday mornings, reading under the duvet on Mama and Pops’ bed.

Alex hesitated, not sure how to explain this, his hesitation. He and Eliza hadn’t broached the subject of Philip’s dual heritage, deciding to not… _ hide  _ anything from him exactly, that would be wrong, but also not to state it explicitly. Not until he old enough to understand some of the more complicated parts of it.

And this felt very complicated.

Which left him with no choice but to not hesitate.

“See?” Alex murmured, pulling Philip onto his lap, swinging the pelt around his shoulders so it draped around both of them.

It still fit. Nearly three years and it still fit. He didn’t know why he should be surprised by that but still, it startled him.

All it would take would be one shift of his shoulders, a sensation like the un-focusing of the eyes and he’d be there. Problems would become simple again, shrunk down to the simple and understandable concept of staying alive. A basic directive, followed easily by instinct alone, and no consequences to anyone but him if he failed. No lives entangled with his.  No emotions to be wrestled with every day before you could do anything as basic as going to sleep. An odd juxtaposition of hard and easy. Maybe not easy, not exactly. But shallow.

“Nice and safe,” Pip chirruped suddenly, interrupting his Pops’ train of thought. In the slightly disjointed intonation of little kids, it sounded more like ‘My sand ‘afe.”

“Yeah, buddy,” Alex kissed the top of his head, finding a lot of comfort in the way he smelled, like brown sugar and peanut butter and blueberry soap, “Nice and safe.”

“Like Pops promised,” Philip beamed, craning his neck back to look at Alex.

Alex blinked, feeling enough emotion in that moment to choke him. It hurt but a hurt that was necessary, that was wanted, like bright sunlight in the eyes after walking from a dark room, the sting of a removed splinter, the ache in restricted muscles finally being able to move.

“I’ll always keep my promises to you, lion cub. You know that, right?” he hoped Philip didn’t notice the way his voice trembled.

He didn’t seem to. He nodded enthusiastically, curling more into his lap, face buried against his chest, “I know, Pops.”

Alex closed his eyes, winding his arms around his son, listening to the now distant rolling of the storm though whether it was by distance or the pelt drowning it out, he didn’t know. Either way, he pushed it far out of his mind, what he focused on was Philip’s thoughtful breathing, the way he hummed the theme song to his favourite cartoon under this breath.

He didn’t know where the song came from, he never did. It came from somewhere at the very root of him, like it was always running through him but he only drifted in and out of its current. It was nothing with a start and an end, it was more like a living thing. A living, breathing prayer, part of his DNA, the frequency at which his bones reverberated. Singing it for Eliza in the moments when she needed it, for their unborn child when they would refuse to settle even when their mother wanted to sleep, for Philip when he’d broken his wrist and had been forced to face one of his biggest terrors- the hospital. In those moments, singing it felt more like offering them something of himself, taking a deep, generous handful of whatever opalescent black soil lined the edges of his soul and giving it to them.

But it was worth it. A few bars in of the haunting, sloping melody, ran through Alex’s careful hands to fit what he needed it to, right now he needed it to be warm, full of promise and protection, and Philip closed his eyes, a happy smile on his face. He didn’t sleep but there was no more fear in his heart; it had barely left a mark.

It was the front door rapidly opening and banging shut, Eliza’s worried, fearful voice calling for her boys, that woke them out of the song, that had somehow flowed and changed to incorporate the old game of counting the beats between each lightning flash and thunder clap to follow the progress of the storm as it disappeared into the horizon.

“Alex? Philip?” she panted a little as she threw her soaked coat carelessly over the sofa, not caring that she was dripping rainwater onto the carpet, tracking mud, only cursing her body preventing her from darting up the stairs as fast as she wanted to.

Eliza had been worried to the point of nausea since the storm first hit in the middle of her final period French class. Her friend, Maria, the lady who taught in the classroom next to hers had been forced to drag her back from the door, insisting that there was no way anyone was going anywhere in a storm like that, least of all the seven-month pregnant Eliza. So, she’d been forced to pace restlessly this entire time, knowing in the very depths of herself that her boys were scared and needed her.

She gave a small, dry sob of relief when she heard their son’s voice from the bedroom, his flurry of excited, “Mama, mama, mama!”

It took nearly everything Eliza had not to give a cry of surprise at the sight of Alex, what was unmistakably his pelt around his shoulders, Philip in his arms. The answers to what she found, that flashed into her mind before she could think properly, would shame her when she remembered them later that night.

_ As soon as they found their skins, found where they were locked away, they would take them and run back to the sea… _

But then Philip was at her shins, clinging on for dear life, chattering animatedly already about how scary the storm had been, how Pops had protected him, wasn’t it loud, is the new baby scared? Eliza murmured answered, petting his hair, but her gaze was fixed on Alex who had whipped the skin from his shoulders, as fast as if it’s touch burned him, back in the trunk and locked again with the kind of loud thud that couldn’t be argued with.

Once Philip had run out of the room (to go splash in puddles, like Pops said), Alex made an attempt at giving Eliza their usual greeting like nothing at all was out of the ordinary but his voice broke halfway through asking her is she needed him to rub her ankles and he began to cry. Eliza was ready, holding him, rocking him, not needing to ask; she’d pieced it together herself.

The tears lasted a while, but just like the storm outside it did pass. What seemed endless, insurmountable, did pass.

Alex had been rereading all the parenting books he’d picked up the first time around, when Pip wasn’t Pip but a concept, half to make sure any information that may have escaped the as yet boundary-less fields of his mind, partly to revel in the excitement of having another little baby to meet. And they all made it clear that parenting was hard, there would always be struggles and trials and exhaustion.

Alex remembered this and gave a shaky sigh into Eliza’s shoulder, prompting her to rub circles across his back soothingly.

Whoever wrote those books had  _ no  _ idea. 

-

Angelica seemed like such a grand name for such a tiny thing.

Alex found himself having to balance these two ideas in his head, that of his sister in law, intimidating and commanding when she wanted to be, warm and playful and witty when she wasn’t being anyone but herself. And his new daughter, who he had laid lengthways across his lap, head gently supported in his hands that had finally stopped trembling a few minutes ago. This new little Angelica who he didn’t know yet but even know after the first hour or so of her life, he ached to know everything, every single little detail of who she would be, what was and wasn’t yet determined about her personality; how she’d smile, whether she’d like mornings or not, what movies she’d prefer, whether she’d fall in love, what colours would suit her, allergies, fears, nightmares, hopes. Everything Alex had given her, everything Eliza had given her and everything that would come from just herself, no one else.

Alex wept silently as he held her, his thumbs running across the tight, damp curls at the nape of her neck, watching the sunlight fall on half of her face but not wake her, just illuminate her skin. She was darker than Philip, more of his colours than Eliza’s.

Getting her here had been hard, worse than last time, proving that the old adages of practise makes perfect and fortune favours the prepared mind were bullshit. But she was here, their little Angie, who wore another person’s name but would become entirely her own person.

Alex couldn’t wait to meet her. Already, he was reeling with love.

He was usually good at picking up Eliza’s moods, reacting and adapting to them without needing prompting. It was part of his instinct, the way he could smell the state of the tide in the air or could hear bad weather before it materialised on the horizon. But today he was exhausted, he was overwhelmed and his senses staggering under the weight of a new world.

So, only today, he didn’t intuitively turn to see Eliza standing in the doorway, leaning against it as her legs trembled, fingers bunched up anxiously in the towel wrapped around her body. She’d washed away the sweat and blood and agony, sluiced it from her skin and down the shower drain in a tide of soap (Alex’s body wash, she always used that when she needed comforting so her skin would smell like his). But there was a gap in the bottom of her stomach now, a hollowness and want, the dazed uncertainty of her body unbalanced and wrongly shaped. And an exhaustion that ran too deep for words.

It was all of this that left her unable to fight back the fears that had been rising in her ever since the day of the storm. She was going to say it. As much as she knew that it wasn’t a good idea, she was still going to say it.

“Eliza!” Alex hissed, the excitement in his voice meaning it only just stopped short enough to still be called a whisper, “Eliza, look, she does the little eyelid flutter thing Philip does!”

Eliza tried for a smile, leaving ghosts of footprints as she padded across the room to gingerly sit on the bed beside her husband. The smile became something real only when she gazed down at her daughter’s face. She knew she wasn’t supposed to care but she’d sobbed with joy when Alex had bewilderedly told her it was a girl, clutching her to her chest and trembling with a joy that could only be expressed with near hysterical bawling.

She was too beautiful for words, their little Angie. Eliza thought that she’d keep her hair short for as long as her baby girl would allow it; she could see now, in the fresh, moony face of her hours old child, the bob of raven wing hair she’d grow to have, a colour so indefinable that it transcended such common or garden words as black, holding blues and greys and deep purples in it, given the right light. It would frame the sleek, defined face she would grow into- her father’s face, in a lot of ways- and highlight the dusting of freckles Eliza knew by some primordial maternal instinct would dust her long nose.

“She’s just gorgeous, isn’t she?” Alex beamed, the tears catching the dawn light filtering in through the windows as he repeated the words he’d already said again and again but they were still just as true, “I mean, Eliza, baby, she’s so  _ perfect.” _

“I know,” Eliza whispered, leaning against Alex’s shoulder so she could softly cup Angie’s sleeping face, prompting the little thing to lean into her mama’s warm palm.

Alex didn’t understand why their new daughter couldn’t just sleep in his arms but Eliza pointed out the way his own head kept nodding and the bruises under his own eyes, finally convincing him to set little Angie down in her bassinet by their bed so they could get to stealing whatever minutes of sleep they’d be allowed until she woke up.

Maybe she wouldn’t say it, Eliza thought, as she watched Alex’s back, the muscles moving in waves under his copper skin as he set Angie down, pulling the blanket over her and tucking her in so close and safe. Maybe she’d regained enough of her control to swallow back the words, after all, this was one of the most perfect and beautiful moments of her entire life. She didn’t need to say it.

But then her eyes drifted down to the run of birthmarks along Alex’s lower back, that travelled down the prominent ridges of his spine and disappeared under the waistband of his shorts. He’d told her what he’d realised about those birthmarks and she found herself hating them, they that dared to run down below that dark fabric and touch the part of Alex’s body that belonged to her as much as it did him, that she’d marked out and mapped with her hands and her mouth so carefully. Poisoning that so beloved part of him with memories of awful times and the possibility of heartbreak and loss. Reminding her of everything that had dared to hurt the man she loved.

And how the man she loved could hurt her.

Eliza knew with even harsher, granite carved certainty, that she was going to ask it. She had to know, in this moment as much as any. So, she could know for sure whether such perfect and precious moments were numbered.

Alex noticed then, and realised with a stab of guilt that he’d missed it before, when he turned expecting to see Eliza’s smiling face, her expression mirroring his own, but instead saw her fighting back tears.

“Baby?” he murmured, his heart sinking, scrambling over and kneeling before her, holding her face in his hands, “What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”

It did hurt, it hurt in a million different ways, but Eliza shook her head. The tears were undeniable now, now that Alex had seen it too.

“I just…” as inevitably as she’d accepted the words, now her tongue felt heavy and swollen and unmalleable.

Alex blinked, it dawning on him that this wasn’t merely that her torn and bruised and exhausted body needing some love and affection and sweet words, the ones that had been crowding at the back of his tongue all day and he would give freely and devotedly.

Eliza saw his expression and it only made her cry more, “It’s just…everything you said, what happened to your mother…the storm…”

Alex looked taken aback, “It was a long time ago, Eliza…”

Then was history repeating itself?

“But…I saw the way you…with Philip,” she managed to choke up just enough of the words for Alex to piece it together and know what she was talking about.

“I was only trying to comfort him, I swear,” panic leeched into his voice, “I felt nothing, I swear! That’s the first time I’ve put it on in years!”

Eliza’s jaw slacked a little and she caught his shoulders, shaking her head frantically, seeing him veer off the path she was trying to describe, “No! No, no, no….”

Angie stirred behind Alex, making them both jump. Just a sleepy huff and slight squawk before snuggling further into her swaddling and going back to sleep, but her parents both stiffened. Eliza sighed silently, placing a finger to her lips and getting up. Even confused, even scared, Alex moved swiftly to help her, supporting her hips where most of the ache was concentrated, her back which yowled painfully when asked to prop up the weight of her body.

They found themselves in the nursery, neither of them quite sure which of them had made the decision to come here, in his brightly painted room that would become Angie’s when she was old enough, still decorated lovingly as it had been for Philip. Maybe it was knowing the baby monitor standing sentinel on the bookcase would let them know if their daughter’s sleep was disturbed and she needed them. Maybe it was something else.

“Eliza, I promise, I…whatever that looked like, I don’t want to go, I’m not…” Alex scrabbled at his words, eyes wide with fear, not knowing what he should take back but wanting to do it so badly blood beat behind his eyeballs and made his vision swim.

Face wet with tears and lined with tiredness and sorrow, Eliza placed her palms on his chest, their universal gesture for calm down. Listen. I will explain. Trust me.

“Alexander,” she pulled the last scraps of his focus back to her with all four syllables of his name, “It isn’t that, I’m not…accusing you. I just want to know.”

“Know what?” Alex looked helpless, taking hold of her wrists.

Eliza’s mouth twisted bitterly, hating this, hating herself, hating that she just couldn’t have her Alex without needing to needle and question and worry. Her forehead dropped to his chest and she nearly wailed, “What that awful man did to your mother, stranding her, forcing her to stay on land…is that what I’m doing to you?”

Alex staggered a little, eyes widening.

“Oh no…” he breathed, not as an answer per se but at the realisation of how long Eliza had been carrying this fear like calcification on her heart, like something pressing too tight on her neck that couldn’t be loosened.

Eliza sniffled miserably, “Am I doing wrong by making you stay here, am I hurting you? You sounded so  _ angry  _ at what he did to your mother, I get that there’s nothing worse you can do to a Selkie, if I knew that I was putting you through that pain I couldn’t live with myself. Oh Alex…”

“Shh,” Alex soothed, hands coming up to run through her hair, damp from the shower, “Eliza. Oh god, my beautiful Eliza. No, listen…”

He gently placed his fingers under her chin and lifted her swimming eyes to his own. There was no insistence in the movement but Eliza went willingly.

“Eliza, you and I could not be more different,” he gasped in a trembling voice, “Baby, you didn’t take my skin, look, it’s right there, I could have it back any time I wanted! You made that so clear.”

“But…” Eliza bit her lower lip, she knew how Alex felt the pull sometimes, how he had to use all these tricks and coping mechanisms to fight against it. Surely none of that would be necessary if she wasn’t chaining him here?

Alex shook his head, running his thumb along her bottom lip line, seeing the thought gaining purchase behind her eyes and shrugging it off before the words could even leave her tongue.

“Eliza Hamilton,” there was firmness and promise in the way he spoke now, “I gave you my skin. It’s hardly even mine any more, it’s  _ ours. _ Being here, this life with you, it scares me sometimes but you make it so worth it, it’s barely even a thing I consider these days. Nothing keeps me here but my own choice. My choice to be happy.”

As much as her self-doubt was roaring, that tone, the look in his eyes couldn’t be argued with. There wasn’t a shred of reservation, Alex at his most open and certain and real.

“I mean,” Alex huffed out a slightly hysterical laugh, “Look at what I have here! Look at what you’ve given me, Philip, Angie…Eliza, you are my life. They are my life. Where else would I want to be but right here?”

Eliza’s lower lip trembled but she let it, her tears held only relief now. Relief and delight as she had it confirmed for her that she was giving Alex the happy, safe life she’d always hoped she was.

Alex relaxed, smiling through his own tears, “There is something worse you can do to a Selkie, other than take their skin. You can keep them away from their mate. And Betsey, believe me, nothing-  _ nothing _ \- is going to keep me away from you.”

Eliza threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him as she sobbed. Over and over again she whispered the words, I love you, I love you, I love you, as he hugged her back, covered her salt tinged skin with kisses, pressed her to him, as he carried her back to bed and lay with her, his body curled around hers protectively, his grip never slackening even in sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Eliza enjoy a moment of quiet

Eliza had never liked sleeping in, she’d always felt like the day had been wasted if she spent most of it in bed. Her dreams were always light, the slightest touch of sunlight on her eyelids enough to wake her, almost like on some subconscious level she was afraid of missing out. Alex, in contrast to his wife, slept sparingly but deeply, his body making sure to get the most out of what few hours he gave it to rest. He and Eliza fought a near constant, playful war over her trying to push him into bed earlier and earlier every day, changing his alarm clock when he wasn’t looking to give him a few hours more, but he could never quite seem to shake the instinctive schedule of a hunting animal.

This made the situation they found themselves this morning a familiar one; Eliza’s eyes fluttering open, already bright and alive and awake, twenty minutes before her six o'clock alarm which she had even on Saturdays, while Alex kept on snoring softly.

She woke up with her head pressed to Alex’s chest, her legs knotted around his hips, some of her hair having wandered into his mouth. They always fell asleep in such a hopeless tangle. Part of it was the fact that they usually just fell asleep minutes after fucking hard enough to put dents in the wall behind the bed where the posts smacked rhythmically into it, part of it was Eliza being an unashamed blanket hog and Alex needing to cling to every scrap of warmth, part of it was his anxiety running like an underground river through the pit of his stomach reminding him that if he woke up in the grip of a nightmare, which he often did, he’d need her close. Either way, untangling themselves in the morning usually took some time.

Eliza didn’t mind today, she had no plans to be anywhere but here. She’d discovered that loving someone as acutely as she loved Alex brought with it a strange enjoyment of the smallest things. She’d never thought she’d get so much warmth and delight, strong enough to feel like a miniature sun radiating between her ribs, simply from watching anyone sleep.

He just seemed so content and relaxed, in a very rare way for her poor Alex. His chest moved slowly, surely, like bellows, making Eliza think of the workings of some great ship, of mechanisms and gears and weights. But then she carefully shuffled closer to him, felt his cool skin, such a warm colour but those few degrees lower, a discrepancy she associated with comfort in a peculiar kind of way. Not the comfort most people thought of, blankets and fires and heat, but the comfort of having cold water run across irritated skin or a breeze when the weather was suffocating or ice running down a parched throat. That was her Alex all over, not what anyone would expect but that only made what she felt for him sink deeper.

Eliza heard the blood rushing through his body, the picked-up rhythm of his heart, still faster than hers even as he slept. That was one thing their children had inherited from their daddy; she always noticed the flicker of surprise across the nurse’s face right at the very beginning, when they would press the stethoscope to her skin, against the little swelling that no one would notice but her and Alex, and find the second heartbeat buried inside her. They’d recommend relaxation, certain foods or medications, murmuring about foetal distress, but eventually they’d cotton on that it was just the way they were. That faster than average heartbeat would still be there a month later, nine months later when they could listen to their heartbeat without the interference of her skin, a year later, two years, five years. Eliza had felt it yesterday morning when she’d squeezed Philip in a hug before he left for school, when she’d straightened Angie’s tie after she’d tied it too tight, when AJ had been refusing to wear his raincoat and she’d had to wrestle him into it, when her youngest, sweet little Jamie, had been feeding just a few hours ago and his little form had been pressed to her.

The same quick, lively rhythm in every chest. And here it was now, under her palm, echoing through Alex’s ribs. It was like a little lifeline, a thread, connecting all of her family and her mornings were always brightened by feeling it. 

Eliza lost track of the time as she lay there listening to Alex’s heartbeat and watching him sleep, not asleep herself exactly but somewhere in between where she couldn’t feel the minutes slipping by and couldn’t be touched by anything but what was right in front of her, blurred into half reverie, half reality. The only way in which she was even vaguely aware of the day progressing was the room slowly building with light, filling up with an increasing tideline of the pale, translucent sunlight of the later morning. It was as if, even in Eliza’s wildest dreams when anything and everything became a possibility, all she wanted was to be here in bed with her husband next to her. A simple desire maybe, but Eliza could not be more content. How many other people could say that what lived in their dreams matched their reality so perfectly?

The peace was broken before restlessness could set in, the room finally growing too bright for Alex’s oversensitive eyes to remain closed against. Eliza was shifted with him as consciousness found his muscles first, tension flexing its way through them, then his mouth as he made a low growling sound, almost like he was annoyed at being woken up, then finally his eyes, screwing up and snapping open.

“Morning,” Eliza whispered, her voice cracking with its first spoken word of the day, a smile growing on his face at how cute he looked when he was sleepy.

“Hey,” Alex grunted back, wriggling his arms free and stretching them high above his head, joints popping all the way down. Once he had full control over his body again, he could smile back, entwining his body around her and pulling her over so she was on top of him. Eliza gave a sleepy giggle at finding herself draped over him, happily snuggling in so her mouth was pressed to the hollow of his neck. She breathed in his scent, the slight tang of salt and the dark musk that reminded her of night time, something of the acerbic smell of his typewriter ink, a little of the dust from his beloved old books. And more than a little of her, her own perfume from the countless times every single day their skin brushed together until it was an indelible part of him.

“I missed you,” she found herself saying in a low, gentle voice.

“While we were asleep?” Alex asked, surprised and bemused, “I didn’t go far.”

“I know,” Eliza felt a little silly, blushing and glad that their position hid her face.

Alex’s hands found more energy, coming up and running down the ridges of her spine, “You know what? I missed you too.”

Eliza shivered happily, kissing at the side of his head along the line of his hair. Suddenly, she didn’t feel silly any more. Alex took that away from her, giving her the power she’d never had until she met him, to say whatever she felt in whatever way she felt like it without needing to check herself or feel ridiculous or shy. He took all those bits of her and loved them just like any other.

“Were you watching me sleep again?” Alex hummed in happy puzzlement, revelling in the memory of her dark brown eyes, always reminding her of the colour of ancient trees, which had been the very first thing he’d seen when he woke up.

Eliza grinned, putting more agency in her own muscles, lifting herself up to kiss at the bridge of his nose now, slowly meandering her way down to his lips, “Can’t a girl watch her man sleep?”

“I’m not a man,” he pointed out in a playful tone, eyes bright.

“Either way,” she snorted, her kiss at the corner of his mouth becoming a nip as if to chastise, “You’re mine. And I reserve the right to enjoy the simple pleasure of watching you  _ en repose.” _

“I am yours,” he hummed, looking infinitely pleased by that fact.

Eliza grinned down at him, her hair falling in a curtain down one side, catching the sunlight and shining with an almost ethereal glow, the kind of colour scheme Alex had only ever seen on the palettes of watercolour artists. It put such a deep, cavernous need in him, to hold her and pin her above him. To suck and lick and breech and explore with his fingers, press and stroke and pinch and rock her until she couldn’t take anymore and pushed him away. Eliza felt it crackle through the air between them, as clear as if he’d said it aloud as if there would be words for a feeling so profound. She started to smile, her body shifting in an unspoken answer to his unspoken question.

Of course, it was as soon as their lips came together that the door swung open.

“Mama!” AJ’s voice, somehow so loud and full for such a little thing, having inherited his father’s name, volume control deficiency and short stature, “Pops!”

Eliza gave Alex a smile as their kiss broke, neither of them holding any annoyance. This was just part of their life. The need would still be there, as healthy as ever, the next time they found themselves alone.

“Good morning, sweethearts,” Eliza rolled off Alex, beaming genuinely at her two youngest; AJ looking ticked off, his black hair in an electrified cloud around his face, Jamie sporting a sparser and somehow neater version, along with his perpetually anxious expression.

“Jamie’s hungry,” AJ informed them, shaking the hand his tiny brother was clinging to as if in evidence, “Woke me up.”

“Like you aren’t a little nightmare when you’re hungry,” Alex propped himself up on his elbow, smirking.

“He doesn’t mean it, baby boy,” Eliza chuckled a little at the very grown up look of indignation on AJ’s face, “Come on up.” She patted the bed, smoothing out the blankets, having a sneaking suspicion that this very invitation was why AJ had brought his little brother along rather than asking Philip, who also shared their bedroom, to take him.

AJ was a funny little thing but he worked hard to hide a soft, generous heart. Eliza could tell he was going to grow into a brilliant older brother, a brilliant person. She was very, very glad she’d persuaded her husband to name this baby after him- AJ being a way of not getting little Alex confused with big Alex- she didn’t think any of their children would turn out to be so suited for it.

Jamie hadn’t quite got the hang of walking yet, he moved his legs in too big of a circle, plopped them down too heavily. It was only the irresistible desire of wanting to walk around and devotedly follow his older siblings that had gotten him on his feet so quickly. The slippery material of the seashell patterned onesie he wore wasn’t making the task any easier, AJ had to half carry him over the short distance to the bed, giving him a little too enthusiastic of a boost that left him sprawling across his mama’s lap.

“Oh!” Eliza righted him quickly, knowing Jamie was an easy crier and burst into tears at the slightest provocation. He soothed in seconds once she had him in her arms, “Hello, my little angel.”

Alex scooped up AJ in turn, wrapping his arms around him and kissing his mussed-up curls. None of their babies ever got within his reach without getting a flurry of kisses and a tight hug. AJ pretended to grouch, maintaining the ‘too big for cuddles’ stance he’d been occupying recently. But it only took two seconds for him to start hugging back, his arms just about long enough now to wrap entirely around his Pops’ waist.

Eliza smiled, the sight of them warming her through as if this morning hadn’t already been perfect enough. She got Jamie all settled, hiking the old shirt of Alex’s she wore to bed down off her shoulder so he could feed, one arm supporting him, the other resting against his head, one thumb stroking his silky baby hair.

“Hungry, huh, little man?” she murmured, feeling him cling onto her for comfort and warmth, burrowing instinctively into her softness as all the tension melted away out of his little bones. The knowledge that she was who her little boy turned to for this, that she could do this for him, it was enough to make a few happy tears seed behind her eyelids.

Alex grinned at her, from behind the forest of his little namesake’s hair. She saw the request in his eyes, he didn’t need to say it. Something was missing.

“Go on then,” Eliza beamed at him.

Excitement flooded his face and he shifted, disturbing AJ who had almost drifted back to sleep. He didn’t even need to leave the bed; the walls of the cottage didn’t take much to cross.

“Hey!” he hollered, knocking his fist against the wall for good measure, “Mama and Pops’ bed, front and centre! Ten  _ hut!” _

It was a drill they were all familiar with. Angie turned up first, cocooned in her duvet so she looked like a giant marshmallow with legs poking out, “Alright, alright, I’m here…” She hopped up in between Alex and Eliza, leaning against her dad.

Philip wasn’t far behind, looking like a sleepwalker, only able to make vague grunts, falling face first across everyone’s legs and not moving, like that was all he was prepared to do. He’d gotten so long and so lanky in such a short space of time, like the roly poly baby fat had been transferred directly to pure height and muscle and sinew. His feet hung off the edge of the bed.

Now everything really was perfect. Alex attempting to hold as many of his children as he could possibly manage, Angie nodding off against his shoulder, AJ plucking at one of Philip’s curls, Philip semi unconscious and blissfully unaware, Jamie soothed and safe in her arms. Eliza leaned back against the pillows and just basked in it all, in the low chatter, the harmony of so many soft breaths, the more tangible warmth of the blankets and sunlight and the much purer, richer warmth of having the people she loved most in the whole world close by and safe and happy.

Eliza couldn’t imagine how any dream could possibly be better.

-

Eliza found herself drifting a little, some daydream state coming and settling on her shoulder like a bird, its song in her ear distracting her and carrying her off until it took Angie coming in and lightly tapping her mama’s arm to bring her back.

“Sorry, honey, I was off on some other world,” she blinked fast, shaking herself a little and rapping her knuckles lightly against the counter like she was trying to keep herself grounded with the noise and the thud.

“Well, welcome back,” her little girl gave her a wry smile in return. There was so much intelligence in that smile, so much awareness for a girl who was only seven.

Eliza kissed her forehead, right on the galaxy of freckles that ran up from the slant of her nose and across her cheekbones, the ones she’d predicted from the very first time she’d held her baby in her arms. She didn’t think she’d get enough to rival Philip, who was covered from head to toe, his face and across his shoulders and down his arms, the tops of his legs. They bothered him sometimes, she’d seen him looking in the mirror with a tight, unhappy expression, she’d heard from a regretful Maria that some words had been thrown at him at school. So, Eliza took every single opportunity she could to tell him how she admired his speckling, his decorations, repeating as often as it could come up naturally that they were unique and special and beautiful. She would kiss them whenever he wore short sleeves and prayed to god that he’d find someone when he was older who would love them just as much as she did.

She didn’t think Angie would face the same issues, her freckles were just a slight spatter compared to Philip’s torrent. Like whatever or whoever had constructed her daughter’s face had been compelled to add a finishing touch, taking a paintbrush dripping with the most gorgeous earthy brown and lightly tapped the edge to form the spray over her golden skin Eliza admired now. Poor Philip must have had more of a Jackson Pollock type.

“How’s the homework going?” Eliza asked, her hand resting on Angie’s thin shoulder. She was built from wire, her little girl, mind and body and soul.

“All finished,” Angie replied, leaning into her mother’s touch and wrinkling her delicate nose a little, her eyebrows that were already slightly joined by a light bridge of more flaxen hair knotting together fully, “Emily Dickinson is weird.”

“Weird?” Eliza grinned bemusedly, “Do tell, baby girl.”

“Well…” Angie struggled to hop up on the counter, needing a little boost from Eliza to really get there, “We have to research a poet for school so Pops gave me her book. And she’s really good, I like it, but she’s so  _ sad.  _ Like really lonely?”

Eliza nodded slowly, remembering that she had a cup of coffee in her hands. She loved the smell of coffee, it reminded her of cool mornings with howling winds and rain that she knew she didn’t have to go out in, of Alex’s warmth and hardness pressed against her under cosy blankets, of Alex himself, just Alex.

“She was a bit of a recluse,” Eliza agreed, nodding, “Lived alone in her room most of the time. If I remember correctly, people used to gossip about her, say she was a ghost.”

“Really?” Angie blinked curiously, eventually nodding, “Yeah. They seem like the kind of poems a ghost would write. If they could hold pens.”

Eliza laughed, her light, golden, ringing laugh that all her children treasured, “Yeah…she wasn’t though, people just didn’t understand her. She was a genius and a little bit different, sure, but people have a way of twisting things they don’t understand.”

Angie swung her legs, her expression thoughtful and relaxed, “People do that a lot with clever artists, don’t they?”

Eliza’s eyes flickered from stirring the coffee, up to her daughter’s face, “They do, honey. It’s never really fair but people seem to prefer demonising and gossiping to making the effort so they can understand those who are different.”

Angie didn’t quite understand all the words her mama used but she got enough that she didn’t press for an explanation. She did have one question that was sitting uncomfortably in her chest.

“Do people do that with Pops?” she murmured.

Eliza blinked, a little startled, having to swallow back something that rose in her throat before she could answer, “Your father isn’t lonely, baby girl. He has all of us.”

Angie considered this, looking down at her knees, still sporting blooms of scabs from where she fell down the other day while teaching AJ how to skateboard.

“He doesn’t seem sad,” she agreed, her voice quietening under the weight of something she couldn’t even name, “But…I read little bits of his stuff? And that seems sad. And angry. And kind of lost?”

Eliza tapped her nails against the side of the mug, the ringing sound doing nothing to break the building, obtrusive quiet, “I suppose it does.”

There were copies of the four anthologies of Alex’s that had been published so far sat there with un-cracked spines on one of their bookshelves, advance copies were sent to them though Alex flatly refused to read his own writing. They came in stiff, grand looking cardboard packages with the equally ostentatious logo of Jefferson Publishing, were opened, the cover briefly glanced at then abandoned on the bookshelf closest to the door where they were opened. The idea that their children might go looking in them, see their father’s name on the side and get curious enough to open and read, had never occurred to Eliza. Or maybe it had and she’d been too scared of it to look any closer.

“But…Pops isn’t a ghost, is he?” Angie pressed again, sounding less and less sure with every word.

Eliza shared her doubt. She knew what Alex was, he wasn’t a ghost. But what he _ was  _ sat just on the fringe of an impossibility. Enough that Eliza herself still reeled from it.

“No, honey, he isn’t,” she eventually nodded, wincing internally as it became clear she’d left too much of a pause, “He’s your daddy.”

Angie nodded too, mimicking her mama, though her little heart was still troubled. She’d rather not hear any more.

“So,” Eliza cleared her throat a little, firmly banishing the awkwardness through sheer force of will, “Did you come just to discuss the merits of gothic poetry with me? Or can I do anything for you, baby girl?”

Angie giggled, having the indelible ability of small children to shrug away bad vibes with so little effort, “I can’t find Pip, mama.”

“Philip?” Eliza hummed, “Is he not in his room? In the fort?”

The Hamilton kids had used the few days of genuine sunshine that summer to collect as much driftwood as their collective arms could hold and cobble together a rough but surprisingly sturdy shack at the bottom of the garden. Philip had done most of the construction, begging a hammer and nails from Alex, which he did get but his father firmly drew the line at him using the bandsaw. Angie had carefully painted it and sanded down the rough edges. AJ had collected shells and rocks for the wonky path that led to the lopsided door. Jamie, seeing as manufacture began only a few weeks after he’d taken his first steps, sat underneath the aging apple tree and amused himself by waving a twig in the air, like a tiny foreman.

“No, I looked there,” Angie hummed, shaking her head so her bob bounced, “He’s not in any of them. Not in the living room either.”

Eliza frowned though she wasn’t worried. Philip was nearly ten, he could look after himself. Perhaps Alex had sent him to the store, they’d been doing that to try and give him some burgeoning sense of independence, knowing that every pair of eyes in the village knew him and would look out for him.

“Here,” she said gently, sliding the mug over to Angie, it had been far too long since Alex had drunk something, “Take this through to Pops, okay? He’ll know where Pip’s got to.”

Angie took the coffee carefully, “Okay, mama.”

“Hey,” Eliza said softly before she turned to go.

Angie turned around, tilting her head curiously.

Eliza kissed her cheek, “I love you, sweetheart.”

Angie flushed a little, her vague little smile growing into something genuine, “I love you too, mama.”

Both of them felt better for that as they parted.

Angie was careful not to spill any of the coffee as she made her way up the stairs, every floor in the cottage was an obstacle course of raised edges and buckled runs that the lot of them had carefully memorised and mapped out but it did no harm to be cautious.

There was an unspoken rule in their house that only mama could come and go through Pops’ office as she pleased, the children had to knock. Not like they were ever denied entry, as soon as Angie rapped her knuckles against the dark wood, she heard her father’s voice, “Come in!”

It was just a small reminder that this was where he worked, that he was usually busy whenever they entered and they needed to respect that.

Sure enough, when Angie pushed back the door, her father was dropping his phone down on the desk with a heavy and resigned thud, slumping in his chair and rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

“Boy, am I glad to see you, my angel,” he sighed, looking exhausted but the wry, crooked, alive smile Angie knew was still there.

“Why?” his daughter smiled back, her grin deepened and lengthened by his use of her special nickname, coming and perching on the end of his desk. She winced at how it croaked in protest and shuddered but she never worried that it would break. This old thing had held taller mountains of paper than Angie herself.

“Well, because of  _ this, _ ” Alex grins, taking the coffee cup and holding it to his chest like a talisman, breathing in the scent of it and feeling nerves that had withered and shrunk back like coral in no sunlight coming back to life and flooding with colour and ideas.

“I aim to please,” Angie shrugged, nudging his leg with one leaf-patterned sock.

“And secondly,” Alex continued, after a generous sip, “Because I really could use someone who can make me smile.”

Angie grinned, feeling awfully proud that she was considered someone who could accomplish that. People at school, teachers, other kids, all she ever got back from them was that she was ‘quiet’. ‘Reserved’ was another word they were all fond of, it had appeared several times on her otherwise glowing report before the summer. A kind way of saying the other word they passed around in more hushed voices when they thought she couldn’t hear. Antisocial. Weird. Outcast.

She only prayed they didn’t say those things in front of her Mama.

But her Pops saw her as someone who could make him smile. And he was who she chose to believe.

“Why do you need to smile?” she grinned, thinking that if she asked for a sip of his coffee he’d probably give her one. That was the kind of thing her Pops liked to do for her, little things to make her feel grown up, like a co-conspirator of his. Like they were best friends as well as father and daughter.

“Because,” Alex rolled his eyes, a diluted version of the frustration she’d seen on his face when she walked in reappearing in the valleys and lines of his face, “My publisher is being a word Mama quite rightly reminds me not to say in front of my little ones.”

Angie giggled, deciding to rest her feet on his knees so she could prop her face up on her hands. At this age, it felt like her body always ached and felt just a little too heavy to lift sometimes, like after only eight years her skeleton had just had enough. Mama would rub her shoulders on an evening and kiss her whenever it hurt, promising that it was just growing pains and wouldn’t last.

She knew all about her Pops’ clashes with his new publisher, Mr Jefferson. He was one of the best in all of New York, she’d heard Grandpa say last time they’d visited, but he and Pops seemed to disagree on just about everything under the sun, right down to having spent two hours on the phone last week bickering about font sizes. At the dinner table, as they’d all been amusing themselves by listening to their father pace in the hallway, snapping and exasperating and gesticulating wildly despite the fact that the man he was arguing with was thousands of miles away, Pip had asked why Pops didn’t just find another publisher. One who didn’t grate on him so much, who he’d never been reduced to calling a ‘pompous blowhard asshole’ (Eliza had given him a stern look for that one, Alex had gotten one of his own when he’d finally wandered back in). Mama had just sighed and rolled her eyes and smiled in that enigmatic way she did sometimes and said that, despite appearances, daddy and Mr Jefferson actually did work very, very well together.

“He’s an idiot,” Angie said grandly.

Alex grinned, the laughter lines that ridged his face filling in the way she’d seen them do a million times, “Damn right, angel.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, her smile became mischievous, “But you’re an idiot too, Pops. So, it all works out.”

Alex paused for a moment before he busted out laughing, the whole of his wiry frame shaking with it, making the battered old chair he sat in creak and screech, almost as if it was laughing along with him.

“I love you, angel, you know that?” he beamed a little softer now, but with more sincerity, running his hand along the desk, shining not with polish but with overuse, until it rested over hers.

“Yeah, I know, Pops,” Angie nodded, “I love you too.”

It was a few moments of companionable silence as Alex drank the coffee down to the dregs with his usual reckless enthusiasm before Angie even remembered why she’d come in here in the first place.

“Oh!” she piped up, “Have you seen Philip? I can’t find him anywhere.”

Alex frowned, his pupils flickering from side to side as he thought, “Ah, not since breakfast. I thought he was doing homework in the dining room.”

Angie shook her head, “Not in his room either. Or the fort. Or the kitchen.”

He worried his lower lip idly, “Huh. I haven’t sent him to the store or anything…you know what, I bet Jamie pulled him in to helping him finish that Lego thingy he was building.”   

“Probably,” Angie hummed, though she had already poked her head into Jamie’s room and found him still napping peacefully. But something told her not to give her father this particular scrap of information, he was already starting to look seriously worried, eyes narrowed and lips tight. Philip would be somewhere. No sense in scaring her daddy. Her brother would be somewhere.

“I’ll go help them. Last night they were trying to put a plane’s wing on the front of it cos they thought it was the nose,” Angie hopped down, her expression back to cheerful and relaxed.

“Yikes,” Alex’s worry faded too, taking his cue from his daughter. If she wasn’t worried, then he saw no reason to be. She was safe, she was happy so he was satisfied, “You go sort them out, angel.”

“I will, Pops,” Angie kissed his cheek before she left, feeling a tickle. His usually trim goatee was encroaching on his upper jaw, he needed to shave. Or rather, he needed Mama to remind him to shave.

Angie hadn’t gotten an answer to her question. But she’d made both her mother and her father smile and that was something of a success.

 

Alex and Eliza finally got their moment to be alone later that night, after all the children were asleep or at least, in the case of Philip and Angie and maybe even AJ, the little rascal who seemed determined to grow up before his time, in their beds. Alex could guess what each one of them was doing as he wandered down the hallway, pausing just a little outside each door he passed; the door decorated with pictures cut out of old National Geographic’s behind which Philip was probably scribbling away at the desk, writing in the black moleskine notebook which had been his favourite present from his last birthday, sipping the glass of spiced milk Alex had pressed into his hands along with a forehead kiss before he’d run upstairs. Jamie would be asleep for sure, he knew that, he’d been watching fondly as Eliza had tucked him in after his last feeding with his cuddly blue duvet pulled right up to his nose. And AJ would be in the last bed, the one closest to the window so he could look out of it and daydream, holding his torch between his knees and a book in his hands that he’d never get around to reading because his head would start to nod within ten minutes and he’d fall asleep with his cheek pressed to the windowsill. Alex could trust Philip to pull the blanket over his shoulders so his little namesake wouldn’t wake up shivering at least. The lines that would be pressed against his face, Alex could do nothing about.

Behind the next door a few steps away, decorated with twisting vines that Eliza had helped her daughter paint one rain soaked Sunday and carefully pencilled quotes from much loved books, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Velveteen Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, Alex could guess Angie was sitting cross-legged on her bed, blanket pulled up like a tent over her head, whatever book she was up to right now spread over her knees. He hoped it was the collection of Emily Dickinson poems he’d recommended to her. There’d be a glass of lavender and honey milk (she was allergic to cinnamon) on the side table which she’d grope for every so often without taking her eyes off the page. And she’d be smiling. They’d all be smiling, his boys and his girl.

So, Alex could head to bed smiling.

His smile only grew wider when he walked into the warm , dusky gold glow of his and Eliza’s bedroom, seeing his wife curled up in the leather wingback over in the corner, the one so used it was cracked and worn and turned calico, reading in the lamplight. She looked up curiously when he walked in though it only took a moment for her to grin back. Alex wondered for a moment at the profound joy he felt at the decidedly simple fact that his wife and his daughter had the same expression when they were lost in a book.

“Hey there,” Eliza brought his moment to an end, raising one eyebrow, “You okay?”

“A little better than okay, I’d say,” he smirked slightly, wandering over, deciding to just go ahead and discard his t shirt as he did, leaving him in just the black shorts.

“Good,” Eliza bit her lower lip and allowed herself to eye him shamelessly as he approached, the way his muscles rippled under his skin, the way the angles of his body cast shadows in the odd lighting.

The differences between who he had been the first day she’d met him and who he was now were so obvious in that moment. He was more filled out in the lower half, clearly eating and eating well every day when Eliza was pretty sure she’d been able to see his ribs as she’d handed him his first bowl of chicken soup. He didn’t shift and fidget constantly, like he was held in a constant readiness to brace and fight, he was relaxed. His shoulders actually  _ slumped!  _  Like his paranoia had finally retreated enough for him to be bored, like the restless, anxious energy that had buzzed through him for the first few years of their relationship had fled. He looked sure of himself. He looked safe.

“Good?” Alex smiled crookedly, seeing the expression cross her face, the deepening and darkening of her eyes.

“Maybe even a little bit better than good?” she teased lightly, casting her book to the floor so both her hands were free to hold his face once he came within reach, pulling him down and pressing her lips to his. Now they were finally alone, they both realised that the ache for each other that had swelled within them that morning had only grew and intensified under their ignorance, without their knowledge. Leaving them with this fire, the one they could taste in that first kiss, as Eliza hummed against the silky line between Alex’s goatee and his lips and he tasted a faint tingle from the toothpaste she’d just used before bed.

What was the point in waiting any longer?

Alex pulled away for air, though as his hands dipped down he realised that Eliza was wearing an old shirt of his, one from a concert he’d never been to for a band he’d never heard of but he’d fallen in love with it at the thrift store, with nothing underneath and that stole what little breath he had. She giggled as the blush ran from his cheeks, down his throat to his chest; she’d known he’d like that. There was no resistance from her as Alex took her hands and led her over to the bed.

Alex thought for a moment, tried to follow which of all the things his body was screaming at him to do to her, for her, with her, it wanted the most. Once he’d decided, he ran with it and Eliza was right on his heels, as soon as it became clear from the way he lay prone on his back against the pillows and ran his tongue over the back of his teeth, where his head was at.

Alex groaned softly as Eliza swung a leg over him so she was perched on his chest, his head caught between her thighs, what he wanted so close, enough that he felt the hairs on his skin stand to attention and his mouth fell open in desire. His hands, fluttering in his excitement like flustered birds, found a perch on the backs of her knees, thumbs rubbing the soft flesh alive with nerves. That and the rest of it, feeling his warm breath against her flesh, disturbing the wetness gathering there at a furious pace, the light in his eyes, the hunger in them he made absolutely no effort to hide, drew such a low, rapturous moan from Eliza that shook Alex so deeply it felt like the resonance of the universe.

“Can I?” he emphasised the whine of desire in his voice, knowing she loved it.

Eliza took a shivering breath and gathered the hem of the t shirt in her hands to hike it around her waist, letting him see all of her, every rose pink, shining inch of her. That sufficed as an answer, she felt.

“Remember to tap my thigh if you can’t breathe,” she reminded him, taking a moment to reach down between her thighs and stroke his cheek. She was only too aware of how he could push himself too far, forget his own, more basic needs while chasing their lust.

Alex snorted, his teeth flashing at her in the gloom, “You think  _ I’m  _ scared of drowning?”

“You are the worst!” Eliza giggled, blushing in that way she did where her whole face went red, “Shut up!”

“Ah, I think you know one really good way to get me to shut up right now,” he raised an eyebrow, challenging her, making her shiver with his words as much as his actions.

“Oh my god…” Eliza rolled her eyes, rising a little on her knees, one hand holding on to the headboard, the other resting against her face, within her reach for when she’d need to bite down on her fist.

“Save it,” he purred, running out of what little patience he’d had and pulled her down to him, burying his face between her legs.

Eliza gasped, feeling electricity course through her from the exact instant he touched down. He started off slow, searching, running the flat of his tongue between her lips, back and forth in deep, measured laps. Only when Eliza was shivering and her chest was heaving and he could feel the tension ringing through her legs did he begin to pick up his pace and vary his pressure, craning his neck in a way that would give him an ache in the morning so he could press his face flush against her. He was soaked in minutes, jaw working and muscles snapping, doing everything he could think of, giving her every trick and twist he knew. After she was moaning and whining into her fist, he began to use his teeth to nip lightly, his lips to suck and pull at her, his tongue to penetrate but only after she’d earned it with the muffled, lusty sobs that dripped from her throat to the hot air between them until they filled his mouth with sweetness.

Eliza was in paroxysms, riding his face with determination and sheer delight, eagerly taking every drop of pleasure he so willingly gave her. He needed to shave, she realised quickly as his rough face and angular lines had her pulsing and pomegranate red against his mouth.

Alex was simply floating, thrown back to times of rare joy, the mornings when he’d slide into the water with a full belly and rested muscles itching for the freedom and expanse of the sea, the first time his mouth would fill with water and salt would flood his tongue and he’d feel like he was home. God those times had felt good but the taste of that unspoiled, curt salt, as beautiful as it had been, it didn’t even come close to how damn good Eliza’s vulva tasted. His hands roved up her back, scrabbling for her, wanting her closer even when it was physically impossible. He just wanted her, even as he had her, shameless and greedy, unwilling to relinquish his grip on this bliss after being forced to live for years without knowing it. He would always want her.

“Alex, oh  _ Alex,  _ more, God, right there, yes…oh yes…”

Eliza’s whole body rang with his name, like she was a complex, exquisitely carved instrument and he had been training for years. But she couldn’t climb forever. It became too hot and wild to keep a hold of, by all laws of physics and entropy it had to.

She came with an almost painful brilliance, throwing her head back and thankfully keeping the strangled cry of his name at an acceptable level thanks to her palm pressed to her mouth. She came once more, her oversensitive clit caught on his nose as she pulled away and left her arching and drenching him further. She whimpered and shuddered as she fell back, between his legs, hair in a dark cloud, eyes hazy, heart racing so hard she vaguely wondered who was beating that drum so loudly so late at night.

“Eliza?” the word drifted to her from somewhere far away, looping a rope around her wrist and pulling her back to earth, “Baby? You okay?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, her voice a satisfied rasp, “God, Alex, that was so amazing…”

Alex shushed her gently, not wanting her to try and talk when she was so exhausted, reaching down and finding her hand. Still, the smug and gratified smile he wore could light up a room.

They both needed some time to find themselves, just basking and giggling at how they were so tangled, Eliza basically using Alex as a pillow, her legs thrown over his chest and yet neither of them showed any desire to move.

“You are…really, really good at that…” Eliza mumbled, eyes closed, a dazed smile on her face.

Alex gave a low, sleepy rumble of laughter, “You shameless flatterer.”

“Well,” she snorted in mock defensiveness, “My brain’s broke. And whose fault is that?”

“Mine!” he cried delightedly, punching the air weakly and making Eliza dissolve into enough sniggers to shake the bed.

Eventually Eliza had her strength back and the hard bulge she could feel through Alex’s shorts, pressing against her tailbone, was giving her an idea for how to put it to use.

“This for me?” she wondered out loud, shifting her hips to work it a little, her heart giving an excited kick at the breathy gasp her movement drew from her husband.

“Eliza…” he whimpered, feeling his body throb, knowing she felt it too.

“Easy, baby,” she pulled herself up, tucking her legs under herself, tossing out her wild hair and giving in to her hand’s desire to pull away his shorts, “I’ve got you.”

She wanted to do so many things to him and from the way he trembled and the depth of the blush his skin that taken on, Alex would give an immediate and impassioned yes to all of them. Selkie Alex had been and continued to be enamoured with the whole concept of sex toys, items that existed simply for pleasure and fun and enjoyment. They owned more than a few, many of them picked for aesthetics or for a sudden exultant thrill to try something new and Eliza’s mind raced with how she could use them, the decedent array of ways she could have him writhing and panting and clawing at the sheets.

Sometimes there was a downside to too much choice. Or maybe she was just indecisive.

“Alex, if you could have anything in the whole world right now, anything to make you happy, what would you want?” she mused, her voice warm and playful, fingers teasing the thick, tight curls at the base of his erection.

The pads of her fingers kneading at him, transparent liquid already beading and running in a salty tingle down his length, Alex’s answer surprised no one more than himself.

“Falling asleep in your arms,” he panted desperately.

Eliza’s mouth opened a little in surprise, eyelids fluttering and her heart swelling for a slightly different reason. After a moment, her gaze turned fond and determined. There would be so many nights for all those other ideas, right now he’d convinced her.

Eliza pounced, straddling him and kissing him lustfully as her hand wrapped around his length, feeling him respond instantly to her touch, his moan hot against her lips. They made out with no haste, only a blissful, idyllic amusement, Eliza working him over with as much attentiveness as he’d given her, like for like, love for love.

Eating her out had brought him so close, she was relishing his cracked, relieved groan of release within two minutes, feeling heat speckle her wrist. After one last forehead kiss, she had him lick it off her skin and they were both finally done, collapsing into each other’s arms, the warm glow from their love making dispelling the need for blankets.

The ache for each other didn’t go exactly, just transmuted and flowed into a more embolus form, something at a lower ebb but would last much longer, never satisfied and guttering out, only fuelled by moments like this one, where they would fall asleep in each other’s embrace. The ache would come back, the hunger would always resurface. But this wasn’t hunger, this was satiation.

This was being mated. 

 

Eliza whimpered softly in her sleep as Alex tried to extract himself, hanging on until the last possible second, only the fact that it was somewhere in the region of three am stopping her from waking up completely and protesting more firmly.

“Just getting a drink,” Alex murmured, his voice full of sleep, kissing her forehead and brushing back some of the hair that had fallen across her face, “Won’t be two seconds.”

Eliza’s face still crumpled in sleepy annoyance but a few more kisses, one for the back of her hand as he carefully placed it on her pillow, one for her cheek, once for her forehead again, each of them tasting of the reluctance in her body as it eventually let him go.

“Two seconds,” he repeated, even though Eliza had already been taken by sleep. Maybe the reassurance was more for himself. He did always feel an uncomfortable pull, even now when he’d been passing as human for years, when even he couldn’t deny that he was fully integrated, somehow moving out of Eliza’s sight still felt like tugging against a fishhook.

The thought, prickly and oddly shaped and awkward to hold, was discarded somewhere on the stairs well before he got to the kitchen.

The fact that the light was on made him jump, brought back a flood of old instincts that made his nerves crackle and stiffen, but it was gone in a second. Alex knew those footsteps.

“Angel?” he leaned in the doorway, now unsurprised to see his daughter padding across the tiles.

He’d kept his voice low and gentle, trying not to shock her, but it was kind of hard not to make someone jump when you came upon them in a kitchen in the early hours of the morning. And his little angel was kind of jumpy anyway, she shot up like a startled cat.

“Sorry,” Alex couldn’t help but smile a little, coming up with his hands raised in playful surrender, “Only me.”

Angie played with the hem of her sleepshirt, “You need to wear a bell, Pops.”

“Hey, you’re the one sneaking around,” Alex’s smile didn’t fade, coming up and holding her face as he kissed her curls, “What’s up, sweetheart, can’t sleep?”

She’d been having a lot of nightmares recently, his angel. Like a stubborn cold she couldn’t shake, most of the reason why she had her own room. It had broken both her parents’ hearts for so long until it became just part of their reality.

“No, I was just thirsty,” she insisted, indicating her glass of water as proof.

He studied her face for a long moment, looking for any trace that she was lying to him to keep him from worrying. But she met his eyes without a tremor, a small, tired, ghostly smile crossing her face.

“Okay, angel,” he murmured, answering with a smile of his own, “As much as I love to talk to you, you need sleep. Off you go.”

“Yeah, Pops,” she nodded, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, “I’m going.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too,” she skittered across the cold floor on the balls of her feet, curls bouncing.

Alex would never be sure what exactly made him ask his question. Maybe it had been nagging at him since Angie had poked her head into his office earlier that day. Maybe it was something that ran a little deeper than that, that had been festering for much longer than just one Saturday but he’d been ignoring it so reverently, he hadn’t even realised.

“Hey, angel?” he murmured, catching Angie’s attention, her sweet, freckled face turning to him, just on the fringe of the kitchen’s halo of light.

“Where was Philip? When you were looking for him earlier, did you find him?”

Angie paused, like she realised then that her dad’s supposedly innocuous question was anything but. Though the slight anxious shake in her voice as she answered was all her own.

“It was really weird actually,” One hand left the glass she clutched and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, Alex recognised it as her tic when she got scared or unsettled. She left a drop of water in the crease of her face, condensation from the glass but right now, in that second, it looked for all the world like a tear.

“Oh?” Alex frowned a little.

“Yeah, he was down on the beach. Wasn’t playing or anything though, he was just…standing there. Staring at the sea,” Angie’s eyes slid down to the floor, her voice quieted, “I had to call his name three times before he heard me even though I was right there. And he looked…he looked like he didn’t even know me?”

She waited for her father to say something to that but nothing came and all of a sudden it felt like the shadows around her were creeping closer, reaching for her, winding around her ankles. Angie turned and sped off, wanting nothing more than to be in her own bed with the invulnerable shield of her duvet pulled over her head.

And Alex was left alone, his heart hammering in his ears like the roar of a wave taller than the trees rushing at him to knock him off his feet and tear him in half.

And he could do nothing to get out of its way.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip runs

Alex and Eliza both knew that it was wrong of them to keep doing this. To keep pretending that this wasn’t happening, like it wasn’t happening right in front of their eyes.

But it was like saying it aloud, acknowledging it with words or even one of their glances that served as full conversations, would make it too real. Like if they never spoke of it, if it was kept to just the restless expressions caught in the bathroom mirror, to every time one of them would wake from a nightmare but dodge away from explaining it as the other would comfort and cuddle them, to every time tears were quickly wiped away when one of them would walk in and pretend not to notice.

They both knew it was ridiculous, damaging, to keep pretending it could be ignored; it would only make the pain more pronounced when it finally had to hit and be truly felt.

But how could they face it? How could they let themselves say it out loud, that their eldest son was slipping away from them? 

 

It was happening right in front of their eyes.

Just small things at first, things that could be attributed to the natural moodiness and sullen nature of teenagers with only the slightest mental gymnastics, easy for Alex and Eliza to explain away with only the faintest pang of guilt. Philip’s unwillingness to get out of bed on a morning, the way he looked noticeably pale and wan throughout the day and yet seemed to find it impossible to go to sleep before midnight, the way he seemed surrounded by an invisible wall, a buzzing haze of ‘leave me alone, I don’t want to talk’. All that was in the books Alex frequently read until the spines were cracked and the edges were worn, thinking that surely, he must be the one at fault, there was just some piece of information he didn’t have and that was why he was failing to reach his son, that was why Philip suddenly felt so far away when it seemed like, just weeks ago, Alex had known him better than he knew his own mind. All that was in those neatly printed, jargon stuffed pages that seemed to think a child was something that could be approached like a mathematical problem or an academic essay, like Alex was expected to be so cynical and practical about a piece of his own soul; Philip was merely experiencing the heart wrenching symptoms of having too old a brain in two young a body, a personality that was at odds with itself and the world around it.

But there were some things that weren’t in those books. That Alex understood even better than everything else that was happening to his little lion cub but damn it, he didn’t want to. How Jamie would come running to them in the middle of the night in tears, bringing them to the boys’ room to find Philip thrashing and writhing in his sleep, muttering feverishly about the current, the current, the waves, the tide, he had to catch the tide…

How Philip seemed to sicken and rot like a plant suffocated in the shade until he was down at the beach. Only then did some of the colour he used to have come back into his cheeks, did his curls seem to lift and find their bounce again, did the smile that once used to be the sun in Alex and Eliza’s lives come back.

How some foods repulsed him now, dishes Eliza had used to make him to cheer him up and make him feel better after an illness, suddenly the scent of them made him shudder and bile rise in his throat. He seemed to only really want fish. Undercooked, if possible; the one night Alex tried making  _ yusheng _ on some creative whim (driven in no small part by the fact that Eliza had been so kind to him recently, learning and perfecting so many different dishes from his birthplace of Puerto Rico that Alex wanted to do the same for her, wanted to give her some culinary part of her heritage) Philip ate three times as much as he had been recently.

There were so many signs, some subtler than others, some screamingly obvious but they all lead to the same conclusion as lines and paths on a map spiralled unflinchingly in to somewhere dark and uncharted and littered with warning signs.

Philip was sick. Philip was sad. Philip was wasting.

And wasn’t it just the cruellest trick, out of all the ones the universe had ever played on Alex, the meanest and vilest and most vicious, that he knew exactly how to cure his son. But it would mean losing him forever.

It was Eliza who eventually broke the silence, she had always been braver than her husband, at least in Alex’s opinion.

It was on a night where the worries and anxiety was actually furthest from his mind, their bed had always been something of a sanctuary for him, those few hours at the end of every day just before sleep where they could come back to each other. Especially now, when there was the gentle little pregnant bump in Eliza’s belly, quickly turning taut and marked in the most beautiful way by stripes and valleys not unlike a careful, attentive etching of some gorgeous landscape, for Alex to fuss over and focus his mind on. This little one had been a surprise, a seed dropped to the soil when both of their backs were turned that took root and blossomed so suddenly. It had been the night of their anniversary, the day marking when Eliza had found Alex on the beach, what he affectionately called their ‘unofficial’ anniversary. Eliza would roll her eyes happily and remind him that their actual anniversary was pretty damn unofficial too, as it happened.

“The line must be drawn somewhere, my dear,” Alex had grinned in answer on that night, seconds before he’d kissed her deeply and rolled her below him, minutes before he’d opened her up delicately and deftly, minutes before they’d made their new arrival.

Not a bad anniversary present, Eliza had thought to herself a few weeks after that, as she’d looked down at the positive pregnancy test in her hand through a curtain of ecstatic tears. Unofficial or otherwise.  

Now, as Alex kissed his way along the dark, charcoal line bisecting her stomach that was becoming more pronounced every day, his restless soul was so settled and steady. So much so that he didn’t notice the tears beading in the corners of Eliza’s eyes, impossible to be a further cry from the tears she’d shed that day, months ago, perched on the edge of the bath with a palm pressed to her belly.

“Alex, baby, what are we going to do?” she whispered, the sadness so pronounced in that miserable little murmur that he was jolted into panic so completely it was like being thrown.

“Eliza?” he blinked, knowing what was coming but still trying to fight it, down to the last second.

“What are we going to do?” his wife asked again like it was all she could say, her voice catching on a snag halfway through. Then the tears were unstoppable, coming flooding down her face, she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle them as best she could.

Alex’s face crumpled, moving quick as lightning to wrap his arms around her, hold her close, rock her against him.

It didn’t need to pass between them, verbal confirmation of what they were talking about, what they were both crying over. It just didn’t need saying.

“Oh Eliza,” Alex murmured tearfully into her hair, “It…it’ll be okay…”

“How?” the word wrenched from her heaving ribs, her fingers digging into him as panic threatened to pull her down.

“I don’t know,” Alex had to admit after a beat’s pause, his throat constricting, “But it will, it has to be.”

“B-but if we can’t…if we can’t save him, how can we save  _ any  _ of them?” Eliza sobs were like shards of broken glass, tearing and fractured, “He’s so sad, Alex, he’s dying…and it’s  _ our fault!” _

“Betsey, honey, no…” Alex whimpered, crossing his arms over her shoulders, the truth of her words tasting like bitter poison.

“I can’t let him go, I can’t, I can’t, he’s my baby, he’s  _ mine _ , I need him, I can’t-” Eliza’s gasps were frantic, these hysterics replacing her breath, terror replacing her oxygen. She felt dizzy.

Alex pulled away, hands snapping to her face, feeling her shivers and convulsions.

“Eliza!” he only rose his voice to pull her back, give her the shock she needed to finally shove the panic from her shoulders. Still, it broke his heart to see the moment’s flash of fear in her dark eyes before the sadness caved in on it. But also, a little relief, a little gratitude. She recognised that he’d brought her back.

“Sweetheart, the baby,” he reminded her gently, bringing the heaviness in the front of her back into focus, “Just breathe for me, okay?”

Eliza did, the gulps of air raw on her throat but welcome. She stroked her bump, hands still shaking, “I’m sorry, honey…Mama’s sorry…”

She got no answer, of course, but it made them both feel just a little bit better.

Eliza wept, more controlled but still so broken hearted, resting her forehead on Alex’s chest as her tears dripped onto their clasped hands in her lap.

“It’s just not fair,” she murmured after a while.

“I know, Betsey,” Alex’s reply was grim, the voice of a man faced by an undeniable truth he hated, “I know.”

Of course, Alex thought but didn’t say, if he’d just taken his skin all those years ago and ran back to the sea, if he’d given Eliza that momentary heartbreak, only to free her to go off and fall in love with someone normal, if only their babies didn’t have a lost freak for a father, if he hadn’t been so selfish to break the laws of nature and drag Eliza and now their children down with him…

Too late to think of such things now.

“I will let him go,” Eliza whimpered, prompting Alex to hold her hand tighter, “I won’t let him die here. But…it just hurts so much…”

Alex’s mouth twisted, stroking his thumb across her palm, not having anything to say to that.

Eliza gave a bitter laugh, bringing their joined hands to her belly, “And I thought…I thought giving birth to them was the worst pain I’d ever have to face. But it’s  _ nothing _ compared to this…”

Alex gave a small, tortured moan of sympathy, resting his forehead against hers.

“I love you,” it sounded so limp, so pathetic, but it was all he had to give her now.

Eliza’s voice shuddered, “I love you too.”

Alex resolved to have a conversation with his eldest before the week was done. 

 

As it happened, Alex’s chance came the very next day, pounced on him without his knowledge before he could properly brace himself. Maybe things would have gone better, gone differently, if he’d had the time to prepare.

But Alex knew the time to ground himself, to strategize and plan was long gone, as soon as he walked into his bedroom, thinking to change his shirt after realising that this was the one that Jamie had spit up on last week and perhaps needed another run through the wash before it was sociably acceptable again, and saw Philip. Hunched over and whirling around in the blink of an eye with the unmistakable sound of a trunk lid closing, his eyes wide and startled like an animal caught in headlights and seeing death and danger rushing towards him. In that split second, Alex knew he was out of time.

“Pip,” it wasn’t a question or a query, his son’s guilty blush took away any need for that.

His jaw dropped, an excuse or a fumbled explanation or hastily cobbled vindication probably teetering on the edge of his teeth, ready to fall but, looking in his father’s dark, unflinching eyes, stiff with resignation and acceptance, they shrivelled up and died with only a moment’s desperate stammering.

“I just wanted to look at it…” Philip mumbled shamefully, his eyes dropping to the floor.

Alex’s head swam and he took a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, he needed every scrap of his wits that he could gather for this conversation.

“Why?” he sighed eventually, sinking to the floor, crossing his legs so he could face his son on an equal footing. At fourteen years old, he thought Philip deserved that.

The boy shifted and hugged his arms tight around himself, blushing so fiercely it was like Alex could feel the heat radiating off him.

“I don’t know, Pops,” the teenage compulsion not to give anything away still held him fast, the lack of understanding of his own feelings making the idea of sharing them with anyone else, even his father, seem reprehensible, like running down a crowded street with no clothes on.

Alex wasn’t sure how much his son needed telling, how much he’d guessed, how much he knew like the words were carried in his blood.

“You know…you understand what…what that is? What I am?” he tried not to sound like he was ashamed of it.

Philip shrank in on himself a little, the words struggling in his throat, “We’re different, aren’t we? Us a little bit. You most of all.”

Alex’s heart throbbed, “You’re my children. You get it from me.”

The confirmation of what Philip had always suspected but never known for sure, that he felt his heart being ripped in two, his head and his heart pulled in two completely different directions and it was all because of his father. Because he wasn’t like the other people Philip saw every day, the other fathers he knew.

Did he hate his father for giving him this ache? He didn’t want to…

“I don’t belong here, Pops,” there was more venom in his voice that he’d intended, it bled out of his thoughts and into his tone, “Your…this…” he gestured vaguely to the box, to the one edge of the seal skin hanging like a limp tongue where Philip had been unable to shove it out of sight as he’d been caught red handed, “This can take me where I do belong. Cos it isn’t here.”

Alex winced, Philip saw it.

“You do,” though he didn’t sound certain, “Pip, you do or…I mean, you can. You’re more human than me.”

“No, I don’t,” Philip snapped, resenting the implication in his father’s words that it was somehow his fault.  _ You can _ . As if he wasn’t already trying so hard? As if he hadn’t been fighting this feeling for as long as he could remember?

“Pops, if I belonged here, I wouldn’t feel like this!” he gasped, horrified to feel tears building in his eyes, “It wouldn’t hurt so much!”

“Son, I understand,” Alex began to panic, getting the feeling he’d made some slip of the tongue but not sure where. Oh, he wasn’t doing this right, he was ruining everything…

“How can you understand?” Philip flared, his sadness turning to anger like an unstoppable chemical reaction, flaring to life, “You’re happy, you don’t feel it like I do.”

“Yes, Philip, I do!” Alex burst out. His hands had flown to clutch at his chest at some point, “I feel it every damn day, the only thing that keeps me here is you! You, Angie, AJ, Jamie, your mama. You keep me here, my love for all of you, your love, that’s what grounds me, it can work for you too- “

“Well then maybe you shouldn’t have been avoiding me for so long!” Philip’s eyes went black with anger, “Maybe you should have helped me, if you love me so damn much.”

“I…no…” Alex was knocked off his feet, he found himself floundering.

He hadn’t. Had he? Had he been so afraid of facing this, facing his son’s pain and what might have to be done to fix it, that  _ he  _ was the one who’d closed the bridge between them? No…

“I didn’t mean to, Philip,” Alex quelled under the fury in his little boy’s eyes, “If I did, I’m so sorry, I just…I didn’t know how to explain it…”

“You knew!” Philip raged, a realisation that had been brewing for a while crashing over him in a red rush, “You knew I was unhappy, you knew I didn’t belong here! And you knew  _ exactly  _ how to help me but you locked it away!”

“Hey now!” Alex snapped back, stress and fear and guilt crashing together in his chest and producing anger, “Just calm down okay? Let me explain…”

“You don’t need to,” Philip hissed, looking like every hair on his head was standing, fuelled by a manic electricity, “I understand fine.”

He got to his feet, moving so fast he blurred, like a character in a movie reel with half of the scenes cut away, going for the skin or the door, Alex couldn’t know, he just knew he had to stop him and make him listen, he couldn’t bear his eldest being mad at him. His hand flashed out and closed around his son’s wrist, stopping him in his tracks. Shock was mirrored in both of their eyes as they looked at each other.

Alex had never  _ grabbed  _ any of his children before.

“Philip. Son. Please,” he sounded like he was begging and maybe he was.

“You’re being selfish,” Philip spoke in a terrifyingly quiet voice, eyes crackling like magnetic ore brought too close to each other, “You want to keep me here even if it hurts me, just so you don’t have to let me go. I might as well be your fucking prisoner.”

Alex baulked like his son had hit him between the ribs.

“I just…I love you…” he rasped, shaking all over.

“That doesn’t make this okay!”

“You’re my firstborn, I couldn’t just say goodbye to you like it’s nothing, Philip, you have to understand…”

“ _ You  _ have to understand; do you want me to feel sorry for you?”

“Do you not see what this would do to your mama? The little ones, they idolise you…”

“Don’t try and make me feel guilty!”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Let go of me!”

“Philip, you’re not listening- “

“You knew- “

“ _ Philip.” _

_ “No!” _

He wrenched his arm away, his face a wash with angry tears, cheeks flamed and eyes pitted. He was trembling, body tense like he was ready to strike. The moment that stretched on into a dark and desperate infinity between them was one of the worst of Alex’s entire life, his heart screaming at him to take it back, take it all back, begging the seconds to reverse, for time to, just this once, let him try again and make something better out of this.

In Philip’s thunderous expression, he saw his mother. He saw her face as she’d fled, as the man whose name Alex had never known but whose face he’d never forget caught her arm and threw her to the ground, reached for the sealskin she grasped frenziedly, covered in sand and shivering with fear, anger, hatred. Only his thin, reedy cry, one last call for her to come home to him after all the ones he’d thrown into the night over the years, the one she finally heard, had given Rachel the strength to claw at his eyes with her nails and snatch the second that gave her to break away and speed down to the shoreline back to her son.

But Alex’s son was here, in front of him. And it was Alex himself who’d caused the look on his face.

“Oh Philip,” he choked, breaking, falling to his knees.

What had he done?

More than half of Philip wanted to burst into tears and beg for forgiveness, hold his father and take it all back, tell him he didn’t mean it. But the part that was still angry had too much momentum, too much truth in it to be stopped now. So, he ran and left his father to his tears.

Should have taken the skin, he thought to himself as the door clattered shut behind him, would have muffled the sound of his dad crying if it wasn’t echoing clear as day in Philip’s mind already. But his feet were already carrying him, moving independently, nothing to be done now. Joints spinning, nerves sparking, muscles pistoling. What’s done was done.

He passed Angie on the stairs. Her eyes widened in shock, her face paled. They’d always been able to read each other, he and the first sibling who’d made him a big brother. And Angie saw it in the brief instant she was given as he bolted past, that something was very, very wrong.

“Pip, no!” she wasn’t even sure what she was saying no too, just knew it was the right thing to say, “No, please!”

“Sorry,” was all Philip had time to gasp out before he was careening down the too steep steps, coming so close to losing his footing and probably breaking his neck but catching himself on the banister at the last possible second, propelling himself forward and out of the front door in the same beat.

And then he was gone.

To go after him or not? The question was a painful stab sliding in between her ribs. She could catch him, she was faster than he was. Make him listen. Risk breaking her wrists into splinters trying to stop this wheel turning.

But then Alex’s sobs reached her ears and the decision was made for her.

No ten-year-old swore lightly; she’d just learned the power of such words and respected it gravely. But now felt like the time.

“Pip, you fucking moron,” she whispered tearfully, as she turned and ran to comfort her father. 

 

Philip kept on running.

Years ago, his mama and pops had explained the odd, detached sounding phrase ADHD, after his first-grade teacher had called them in for a meeting where Philip had been left alone on a chair outside the classroom, wondering what he’d done wrong, why he was in trouble. But he hadn’t gotten a telling off, mama had given him a fierce, tight hug and pops had kissed his curls, they’d both told him how much they loved him and that everything was going to be okay.

He’d understood it a little more as he’d grown up, when it had sunk in in a fractured sort of way that teachers treated him differently, he was taken out of the room to do his tests and exams, the careful way certain adults spoke to him, the fact that not everybody had to take that medicine when their control really slipped. He’d asked his parents to explain it again, they had done, again reassuring him that it wasn’t anything bad, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Everything was going to be okay.

The words and the medical terms and the forms, all seeming so foreboding and menacing, didn’t mean that much to him. Philip only knew it as a buzzing in his heart, like a bee trapped under a glass and left, knocking against a surface it tried so hard to but just couldn’t get past, it was a sense of discomfort in the pit of him that made doing what seemed so simple to other people difficult for him.  

So now he ran every day, long runs up and down the beach, seeing if he could beat his time from before, a constant race against himself. It was mama who’d had the idea at first, she was always the one who knew what to do. As soon as her boy had come to her, his face forlorn and frustrated, asking if he couldn’t just get rid of this, if there was some operation or trick he could learn to make it go away, she’d leapt into action and, as always, come up with the answer. It had really been helping Philip, actually, feeling the restlessness and the need to fidget and be loud leech out of him, like it was left behind in bright red paint splatters every time the soles of his trainers hit the ground, like it sweated out of him along with the water and salt he had to wipe off his face on his arm once he was done.

So now he ran. But this time, it was doing him no good. The stress only built with every heavy, frantic step, the pulsing behind his eyeballs only got louder until it felt like if he wasn’t careful, they’d slip right out of his sockets and he’d have to scrabble on the ground to get them back before they rolled away. The image made him feel sick and he now ran with his palms pressed to the sides of his head.

He could still hear his father crying. Crying because of what he’d said.

Philip hadn’t wanted any of this, this wasn’t how he’d wanted it to go. He only wanted to stop feeling so lost and rotten all the time, he’d just wanted to make them see…

Why had he gone and ruined everything with his big stupid mouth?

Maybe it was the tears in his eyes, maybe it was because his brain was somewhere very far away from his body, somewhere he didn’t even know, but Philip didn’t realise he’d ran into the village until he was hearing snatches of people asking him if he was okay, was something wrong, calling his name in surprised tones, people he knew, who he’d known all his life, obviously surprised and concerned to see him speeding through the main street, crying buckets. He needed to get away from that.

So, the first side street he came across, there wasn’t many in such a small space, he was down it, the tone of his footsteps changing as concrete became cobble but the frantic pace didn’t slow. It couldn’t, he just couldn’t let it, because what the hell was going to happen when he stopped?

Fate or luck or happenstance or whoever had their fingers at the controls right now had a different plan. Philip didn’t see what it was, a cobble out of place or a bit of garbage from one of the overflowing trash cans from the café next door that he accidentally kicked but suddenly his legs was where his head had been, the ground was suddenly right in front of his eyes and, after a long moment where the world seemed to still and slow and pull out like molasses around him, pain was exploding against his arm and his temple and his hip, one side then the other at least five times before he eventually came to a stop. For once, his unnatural speed worked against him; any other fourteen-year-old boy running and falling, even as fast as they could possibly go, would have suffered maybe only scrapes and bruises and nothing more. Philip, however, was broken like a ragdoll.

“Shit…” he groaned into the loud ringing as the world rolled to a slow, languid halt about three seconds after he himself did. That was going to hurt like hell as soon as his nerves stopped drunkenly spinning, he could tell.

He couldn’t help feeling like he deserved it.

Philip’s shell-shocked mind began making the most of the hazy few seconds before the pain hit, figuring out how he was going to get himself to a doctor if it turned out something was broken, where he could get bandages and an ice pack without it somehow getting back to his parents. At that thought, that pragmatic, rational thought, he felt the hot rush of a sob rising in his throat.

He wanted his mama. He was a scared, injured little kid and he wanted his mama to hug him and kiss where it hurt. He wanted his Pops to give him some water and rub the aching spots until they felt better and tell him how brave he was.

It was such a miserable, desperate want, as soon as it surfaced he was sobbing, his whole body shaking and shuddering as he curled in on his side, half in the gutter, wailing for his parents and for everything he’d lost in the simple yet painful act of growing up.

Philip cried so bitterly, he wasn’t aware of the hands helping him up and a warm voice speaking soothing words until he was suddenly upright, propped against the lamppost his spine had slammed into.

He jumped a little, resisting the touch as he felt it, the fact that it came from nowhere panicking him even though it was gentle and soft.

“Oh, sorry!” the girl jumped too, taking her hands away, “I didn’t mean to startle you…you probably need to sit down, you’ve gone really pale…”

Philip frowned in confusion more than hostility, he didn’t recognise this young girl. Which was incredibly rare. He’d been living in this small town all his life, he knew everyone.

So, who was this?

“Are you okay?” the girl’s voice was nice to listen to, especially after taking a fearsome and painful crash. Low and quiet, the voice of someone who could fix things, “You look...well, you don’t look good.”

Dry, too. Philip tilted his head, his muscles relaxing as much as they were able with pain signals going so haywire through them.

“People don’t tend to after they’ve gone ass over head,” he rasped, blinking dizzily.

“Guess not,” the girl laughed, looking surprised but pleased, probably surmising that if Philip could make wisecracks, he probably didn’t have brain damage.

“You probably should sit down though,” she insisted, a little more firmly, hands on his shoulders moving him to the ground. He went willingly.

“So…um, what’s your name?” Pip asked, deciding to make casual conversation as the girl began studying him critically in a way that made him feel like a case study in a medical textbook or an interesting specimen at a museum.

“Theodosia Burr,” she answered in that dignified yet honey sweet voice of hers, as she picked up one of his hands and began moving the fingers back and forth one by one.

“That’s…wow, that’s a cool name,” Philip was aware how limp that sounded but for some reason the brush of her skin on his, even if it was so practiced and formal, made him shiver and made his tongue feel thicker than it was.

“Everyone says that,” a pretty, measured smile upturned her full lips, “I know it makes me sound like some stuffy countess…or a really bad perfume brand. You can call me Theo, makes it easier.”

Philip snorted with laughter, her easy jokes seemed so at odds with her almost regal demeanour, they were like flashes of sunlight through a thick blanket of clouds.

“No, I mean it. It’s really nice,” he maintained, not wanting her to mistake his burst of laughter as him making fun of her, “My names- “

“Philip, right? Philip Hamilton?” Theo finished the sentence for him, moving on to gently rotating the joints up his arm. He realised now she was making sure nothing was dislocated.

“Yeah?” he was a little taken aback. For a second, under that cool, searching gaze, he genuinely believed she’d plucked his name right from his mind.

She smiled coyly, “The lady we’re renting a room from told me about you. Cos we’re the same age I guess, in case I was looking for a friend.”

“Oh…” Philip nodded slowly.

“And, to be honest, how many other six foot fourteen year olds covered in freckles with that much hair can there be in one village?” Theo’s smile grew wider.

She wasn’t afraid to say anything, Philip noted with an impressed flutter, feeling his face grow hot. He wondered if there was anything in the world Miss Theodosia Burr was afraid of.

“Nah, just one,” he smiled, “I’m Philip.”

“Well, it’s really nice to meet you,” Theo nodded, satisfied that none of his limbs were broken so she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and began cleaning the angry, bloody torn skin visible through a brand-new rip in the knee of his jeans, “Though if it could have been done without you getting beat up, I’d have preferred that.”

“Me too,” Philip grunted, trying not to show too much discomfort as his broken skin yelped in pain. To distract himself, he kept on talking. Talking had always been his response to everything, “So you’re renting Mrs Henderson’s flat, huh?”

“Yep. Me and my dad,” Theo nodded. She had a wonderful set of curls, Philip noticed, they were raven black and sprang playfully whenever she moved her head.

“On a…permanent basis or are you on vacation?” He didn’t know why it was suddenly so important to him to know the answer to that question, why the pause before she answered made his heart clench.

“Permanent,” Theo replied simply, now producing a bottle of water from her rucksack which Philip was now mentally comparing to Mary Poppins’ carpet bag, passing it to him to take a sip from which he gladly did, “Or as close to permanent so that it makes no difference.”

She had the easily radical vernacular of someone who was very well read, “Yeah?”

“Uh huh,” Theo nodded, “My dad used to be a lawyer. But then after my mom died, he kind of lost his drive for it. For everything really. So, he’s been in therapy and they advised taking it easy. So, he’s gonna be a cartographer. He always wanted to try it and now I guess he is. Suppose Oregon must be the best place to do that kind of thing?”

Philip really wished he could do something more than stare at her, his jaw a little slack. He really, really wished he could but what were you supposed to say to that?

Theo looked up from where she was cleaning gravel out of his cut as gently as she possibly could, a wry smile on her face, “Sorry. It’s been a year and a half, at some point I just decided to stop being so guarded about telling people.”

“No, it…it’s okay,” Philip said hurriedly, shaking his head, “You’re right.”

Theo’s smile became much warmer, “Thanks. I thought so,” she took a breath, suddenly seeming much busier with cleaning his injuries, “Look, seeing as we’re being honest. I know it’s none of my business really but you were really booking it there. Everything okay?”

Was he?

“Was I?”

“Yeah,” Theo nodded, looking like someone crossing a river by carefully stepping from stone to stone, wanting not to slip and get their toes wet, “Would have said you were running from something. If you were to ask my opinion.”

Philip felt walls of ragged vines and impassable thickets push up against the soil inside him, ready to spring out and form a barrier around his heart that this girl, the first stranger he’d met in a very long time, would never find her way through. But just before they could, there was another voice inside him, a voice much more certain and sure and relaxed. The voice of the adult that Philip would grow up to be, the voice he was starting to hear sometimes in amongst all the confusing stuff he was so scared of.

The voice told him to trust her, to trust Theodosia who preferred to be called Theo because it was easier. Who was currently carefully prodding her way up his leg, checking for anything broken.

“I had a fight with my dad,” he admitted in a small voice, “So I was trying to get away from all that, I guess. You know how it sometimes feels like you can outrun stuff even when it’s inside you?”

Theo glanced up at him, the eyes he suddenly realised were a gorgeous warm brown were full of understanding, “Yeah. I really, really do… and I understand difficult dads. So. Two for two on that one.”

He gave her a little smile, believing her and trusting her and liking her all the more.

That moment, small but feeling huge in its sweetness, was interrupted suddenly as Theo’s fingers found a sort of sunken pit under the skin of Philip’s right shin where there should have been hard bone and he howled in pain.

“Sorry! Oh shit, I’m sorry!” Theo cried, pulling her hands away like she was frightened her touch was burning him.

“S’okay,” Philip wheezed, though the sickening pain as she’d pressed there had brought him within a hair’s breadth of vomiting.

“I think you’ve broken something in there,” Theo’s expression was concerned, “You need the hospital.”

Philip’s heart plummeted, “Oh…”

Theo saw and understood the shift in his expression, “Probably time to call your parents?”

He knew she was right. If he ever needed a clearer wakeup call that this thing with Pops had to end, this was it.

Though that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Yeah, I’ll call them,” he sighed, shifting up a little before the realisation that he didn’t have his phone, after his screaming match with his father it just hadn’t registered.

Theo gave him a small smile, digging in her pocket and holding out a slim, more expensive phone than his, “Trade you.”

“For what?” he blinked.

“For letting me come to the hospital with you,” she cracked a grin, “Because, no offence? But you’re the most interesting person I’ve met since I got here so I’m not going to let you just walk off. Also? You look like you need someone sensible around at all times to keep an eye on you.”

Philip’s heart felt so much lighter looking at that smile, so light that it felt as if it would float right up and out of his mouth and into the sky.

As Theo passed him her phone, their hands met. They stayed joined as Philip tapped in the cottage’s phone number. And they didn’t come apart for a while.

It was even longer than that before it occurred to Philip that, if Theo’s hand was held in his, he couldn’t hear the chattering from the sea, the indecipherable prattle of whispers that had been driving him crazy for weeks.

He just couldn’t hear them.

Alex didn’t go with Eliza to the hospital to get Philip’s leg seen to. Angie went, holding her pale mother’s shaking hand. AJ went, someone needing to keep an eye on Jamie, who burst into tears at the thought of not being able to go and see if his big brother was okay.

So, Alex was left alone. Eliza thought that was best.

He could tell she was angry at him, as much as she sympathised and ached for him. The anger had been obvious in that glance she’d given him as she’d hastily pulled a coat on, the frantic kiss she’d planted on his cheek as she’d whirled away, herding their children like frightened ducklings. His mouth had opened to insist that he be the one to go, she needed rest, she was too big, she needed to calm down. But he’d shut it again with a snap after that glance.

Eliza had every right to be angry at him; for crying out loud, he was angry with himself. He couldn’t have handled things worse with Philip and now his little boy was hurt because of it.

He’d just wanted to make him understand…

Alex tried to take deep shuddering breaths, legs shaking as he took himself from the door where he’d limply waved as the car had driven off to the couch where he sat down heavily with his head between his knees.

“Please,” he croaked, not sure who it was he spoke to, just anyone who might be listening, anyone who would take pity on him after everything he’d done, “Please don’t let it be too late.”

God, he loved Philip so much. He loved him so much it hurt, so much he wanted to cover his face in his hands and scream until he ran out of air, just with the intensity of it. But that just hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been enough to keep him here, to stop his hurting, to keep him from running away. It was everything Alex could give but it still hadn’t been enough.

“No,” he murmured, voice hoarse, echoing through the now empty cottage like a whisper in a cathedral, something invading and perverse in the quiet space that shocked him and made him clamp his jaw shut, resolving to speak just in his mind.

It wasn’t  _ everything _ he could give.

What was it he’d said to Jamie just yesterday, when he’d been trying to get his youngest to take the foul tasting, chalky medicine that the doctor promised would clear up his fever? Sometimes things sucked but you just had to do them. It didn’t seem fair but you just had to do it because that was the way life was.

No wonder Jamie had given him such a look, Alex thought, his nose wrinkling, it was awful advice.

But it was true.

You just had to do them. It was the way life was.

Alex stood, bones creaking in a way they never used to when he was a younger man, when he wasn’t any kind of man at all. He wasn’t especially good at it but this time it worked; his brain switched off everything in him that didn’t think completely clinically and practically. All emotions were swept to the side and locked away somewhere, giving him a clean ten-minute reprieve before they broke their way out again.

He needed to stay calm. He needed to move fast.

He needed something very, very sharp.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex has a gift for his son

It was worse than any physical pain Alex had ever experienced in his life. Worse than the hunger that had clawed at him ceaselessly through his younger years, worse than the slice of the net that had torn him away from his mother, worse than when the storm had cracked his head off the rock with such force he’d gone blind for half a day. Worse than when he hadn’t been looking and fallen down the stairs, worse than when the mechanism of his typewriter had attacked right as he’d been reaching in to loosen a jammed barrel and his fingers had bled and the bone had showed, worse than when Eliza had broken two of his knuckles as he’d held her hand while she pushed their little girl into the world.

There was something deeper to it as well, something in the way his vision swam and his stomach rolled and his heart rampaged in his ribcage. Like every time he forced his shaking hands to close the scissors, the wickedly sharp ones Eliza used for her sewing that she kept on the highest shelf she could find so none of the little ones could reach them, he was severing more than skin and woven hair. He was splitting something deep inside him that was so otherworldly and profound that it barely had form but, by all the gods, it could hurt.

Alex had done it over the bath, knowing there would be blood and there was, it ran in ruby rivulets down the curve of his wrist and between his fingers where it speckled the clean white surface of the enamel in such a horrific way. He was glad of that choice when he needed to break away twice to retch and heave into the toilet when it became too much but hearing his own moans and screams and yelps of pain echoing back at him from the smoothly tiled walls had a hideousness all its own.

It wasn’t just that it hurt, it was the sincere, unshakeable _wrongness_ of it. He was violating everything he knew by doing this, mutilating some part of himself that was sacred.

But Alex didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until it was done, until he was running water into the tub with an expression like he was simply cleaning up, doing his chores like any normal person would do, perfectly mundane. The blood washed away, the scissors lost their rusty sheen, the pelt- pelts –were clean and shining slickly, only the raw, crimson edges under the fringes of dark fur to show the terrible thing he’d done. They’d heal in time.

And after it all, when they were folded and left dripping slightly pink water onto the hardwood floor of his bedroom, Alex actually smiled.

-

Philip felt awfully woozy.

They’d given him pain medication, although the break was apparently very clean and didn’t need any surgery or setting. Getting the cast put on had been weird, getting an x-ray spooky but it all passed in something of a meaningless blur until he was back in his own bed, the room coming into focus around him.

The only thing that felt really _real_ was the slip of paper he had in his hand, the torn off edge of the record slip stapled in the front of a library book, newly printed with a neat row of numbers and a simple handful of crosses underneath. Theo’s.

As he slowly came back to himself, as the medication released its grip enough to let him think for himself again without the pain coming back (though he knew it would be at his heels), Philip tucked that piece of paper into his notebook. And that simple action brought with it a kind of illumination, like he’d been wandering around a busy city but suddenly recognised where he was and what he was doing and where he was supposed to be, all just with something familiar seen out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey, my little man,” his mama’s voice was steady and soothing, in sharp contrast to the fear Philip could see just behind her eyes, “Feeling better?”

She’d been fetching him a glass of water, he took it and downed half of it gratefully.

“Not too bad,” he gave her a smile, feeling a little guilty for how much he’d clearly terrified her, “I mean, it’s only my leg, right? I’ve got two of them.”

Eliza could have cried then, it had been so long since she’d heard her Pip make a joke. But she had enough sense and enough strength to turn it into a roll of her eyes and a dry chuckle, “Very clever.”

“I try,” Philip was relieved, catching her hand as she reached it forward to take the now empty glass away, squeezing it.

Eliza’s lip wobbled for a fraction of a second as she leaned in and kissed his cheek, “My brave little lion cub.”

Philip wrinkled his nose in adorably childlike embarrassment, “Wasn’t even broke _that_ badly. And Theo took care of me.”

Eliza tilted her head as she pulled away, her hand resting pensively on her bump as she regarded her eldest. She needed to press a little, find out a little more about this Theo, the girl who’d stayed dutifully by Philip the entire time he was in the hospital, making him laugh and joking on with him to take his mind off everything, who apparently, he’d only met that day. It certainly was an interesting development.

Though now wasn’t the time.

“Broken is broken, honey,” she shook her head, “You’re on bedrest for the next few days.”

“Doctor’s orders?” Philip sighed, drooping.

“Even worse,” Eliza kissed his cheek again, just because he was her sweet boy, her little Pip, and the sight of him lying there bloodied and pale on the sidewalk as she’d driven up had broken something deep inside of her, “My orders.”

Philip leaned into the kiss, making it last just a few moments longer than necessary. Maybe it was those few extra beats of warmth, of her gentle flowery perfume and milky scent of her skin that made him murmur, “I’m really sorry about what happened. With Pops I mean.”

Eliza closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and deciding to perch on the edge of Philip’s bed, trying to balance herself and not jolt his hurt leg at the same time.

“Philip, I’m sorry too. There’s so much we should have explained to you by now…” she murmured, her voice low, one hand fluttering to rest on his leg.

“No, c’mon, its fine,” Pip cut her off, not wanting to have any more of his parents apologising to him, “I get it. It’s…rough stuff, right?”

Eliza sighed softly, fondly, “It really is.”

“And I get why you and pops are upset…I just…I think I need to have a talk with him about all this,” he felt a rolling in his stomach but it felt more like taking a deep breath to squeeze through a tight space. There was another side. A deep breath of relief as soon as it was done.

Eliza loved her little boy, her big, strong grown up man, every stage in between.

“Thank you so much, Philip. I love you both,” she murmured, getting up gingerly, sighing softly as her ankles protested. To be honest, she was a little glad. Sore ankles were comparatively so easy to fix.

“I love you too, mama,” Philip watched her go, determining to be half as strong as she was as she shut his bedroom door with a soft click.

It wasn’t long before there was a much more awkward, humble sounding knock on his door, just long enough for Philip to get drowsy again though that one sound propelled him right back to fidgeting restlessly.

“Uh, yeah?” his voice broke a little already.

“Can I come in?” his father’s voice was so unusually quiet and uniform, Philip didn’t recognise it for a heartbeat.

“Course,” he bit his lower lip, not wanting to see the expression that came with that voice.

It was somehow worse that Alex was so clearly struggling to be brave for Philip’s sake, it would have hurt less if he was still openly sobbing rather than this, this rapid blinking to try and hide the tears and biting down on his lower lip to stop it shaking.

This limp attempt at cheerfulness, at pretending nothing had gone so horribly wrong, as he smiled precariously, “Hey buddy, you feel okay?”

“Thanks to the meds,” Philip returned the grin with just as much success, “Gave me the good shit.”

“Just say no,” Alex sighed, appreciating the attempt, trying to reciprocate but they both decided simultaneously that it just wasn’t going anywhere.

He sat down heavily where Eliza had perched just minutes before, running his hands through his hair like he always did when he was stressed. Philip’s fingers itched to do the same but he stopped himself at the last moment; that would have been just a little too weird. Alex saw him and laughed weakly.

There was another pause before they both simultaneously gasped out, “ _I’m so sorry!”_

They looked at each other and dissolved into embarrassed laughter, even as Alex’s ribs hurt and Philip’s leg throbbed. Some pains were worth it.

Alex found his voice first, coughing rustily, “Ah…guess I’m a much better father to little ones than I am to teenagers.”

“That why you and mama keep having so many?” Philip smirked, shoulders still shaking.

“Hey now,” Alex feigned sternness, waving a finger though the grin was back in an instant.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Pip scratched at the back of his neck as if he could physically jostle the words he needed into the right order, “I mean, you’ve got more to deal with than most parents…”

“And whose fault is that?” Alex arched an eyebrow, his smile souring a little.

“Not yours,” Philip answered firmly, without missing a beat.

Alex opened his mouth but he saw in his son’s eyes a fight he just wasn’t going to win. He’d seen that look on his wife’s face before, for the same reason. He closed his mouth.

“This whole thing,” he settled for sighing, “It’s just so much more complicated than any kid your age should have to go through. You have no idea how much I just want to take it away from you, if I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat…”

“I know, pops,” Philip’s throat tightened.

His eyes darkened and shifted to somewhere far away, it made Philip shudder.

“Maybe I should have told you more about what happened to me when I was out there, maybe I should have been more honest,” he murmured, “You’d understand why I’m being so…”

“Protective?” Philip supplied, his eyes wide and worried.

“Scared,” Alex scrunched up his face, “Scared for you. Which I guess is the same thing.”

Pip wished he could pull his knees to his chest, that’s what his body wanted to do. The sharp reminder that he couldn’t, something so simple, made his heart ache.

“It’s bad out there, isn’t it?” he mumbled.

“That’s one word for it, lion cub. Though I can’t tell you it isn’t bad up here too,” Alex sighed, the weight of memories pulling at the edges of his mouth. He managed to lift his eyes, “You know the one rule of being a parent?”

“What?” Philip lay back on the pillows.

“You want your children to be better than you. You want them to have more, be more,” Alex smiled gently at him, “I know you’re so much smarter and faster and more capable than I ever was…I just can’t convince myself that it would be enough to keep all the awful stuff I saw out there from hurting you too. That doesn’t mean I don’t have faith in you, I promise- “

“Hey pops,” Philip didn’t like the direction his dad’s expression was moving in, he caught his hand and held on tight, “I get it. I understand.”

“Yeah?” Alex bit his lip.

“I just wish you’d told us how hard it was for you,” Philip groaned softly, “We’d have helped you.”

If there was ever a time Alex was going to cry in this conversation, it was now. His voice was thick and raw as whispered, “But it’s my job to take care of you? You shouldn’t have to look after me, that’s not how it’s supposed to go.”

“Well…” Philip held his hand tighter, “That’s really dumb, Pops.”

Alex chuckled, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m starting to see that, mijo.”

They both quieted for a moment, though there was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it now, the silence passed between them with something a lot like relief, taking hold of something they’d both been so afraid they’d lost.

“So,” Alex murmured after a while, “Are you…are you going?”

Philip opened his mouth to answer, thinking he knew what he was going to say…but then he didn’t. For some reason, his eyes drifted over to his journal on the nightstand, to where he could see the edge of the scrap of paper poking out just enough for him to read the carefully printed three and six at the end of Theo’s number.

“I’m not sure,” he sighed deeply, “I don’t…I just don’t know. I’m so confused.”

He was shocked and alarmed to hear the tears that thickened and strained his voice as that last word burst out of him but once they were there, he couldn’t stop them.

Alex’s heart jumped, moving forward urgently and wrapping an arm around his eldest son, “Hey, hey, it’s alright…”

Philip cried for a while, just so exhausted and tired of feeling like this, of searching so desperately for a way out of it and now he could see what maybe could be one, he was too scared to take it. Alex didn’t relax his grip, murmuring softly and rocking him a little, singing gently under his breath, doing everything he knew and this time it actually _worked._ The realisation that his son’s tears were drying and his shuddering breaths were strengthening, the sheer relief of it, was almost more than Alex could take right now.

“Buddy, I understand,” he whimpered, kissing the top of his head, “I understand how hard it must be for you but I promise, whatever you decide, whatever you need, I’ll help in any way I can…”

Philip blinked, eyelashes still heavy, salt still prickling in his eyes but now he knew exactly what to say. Or, rather, that more adult, more assured voice inside him knew what to say.

“Pops?” he pulled away from where his tears had been soaking the shoulder of his father’s sweater, an unreadable expression on his face, “How did you know mama was your mate?”

Of all the things Alex had been expecting his eldest to say…

“Huh?” he tilted his head in confusion.

Philip pressed, “When you first met mama, when you knew she was your soulmate, how could you tell? What did it feel like?”

Alex frowned, getting the sense that he was a good few steps behind where Philip’s head was at but, hey, at least he knew how to answer this question?

“Well…it felt like…” he ran a hand through his hair, making it somehow messier than it had already been, “It felt like being lost and then suddenly realising where I needed to go. It was like I hadn’t even realised I’d been so exhausted and suddenly being given a place to sleep. It was like finding home.”

Philip absorbed this, a light coming on in his eyes, “It wasn’t just because you thought she was pretty, right? It was something deeper than that?”

Alex gave a surprised little laugh, “Well, obviously, I thought she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my life. But yeah. It was a little more than just that.”

Philip looked somehow more relieved and more frightened than he’d been before.

Alex steadied himself a little, his voice deepening and broadening, “Your mama gave me a reason to defy everything I’d know up until that point, to take a risk bigger than anything I’d ever taken before like it was nothing. Because I knew she was worth it. I guess I just knew I belonged with her, no matter what any law of nature said.”

Philip gave a little smile, “Yeah. Sounds about right…”

Alex was a little taken aback, his eyebrows raising and his mouth turning up into a crooked grin, “Son? What’s going on exactly?”

He thought he had his answer as his son’s face flamed bright red in such a _teenage_ kind of way and he began to stammer and fidget with his hands. Alex’s eyes followed his and locked with the precision of a hunting animal on that half visible scrap of paper, rising clear as a proud and prominent flag from the slightly yellowed edges of the journal he’d carried so dutifully since the day he was given it for his fourteenth birthday.

Well.

How about that.

Alex leaned back, his grin widening, a knowing look entering his eyes that only made Philip squirm even more and look like he wanted to throw himself out of the nearest window, fractured tibia be damned.

He tried to control himself, coughing nonchalantly, realising there was still something he needed to do, “Well…glad I could help, mijo.”

Philip didn’t go any less red but he nodded, his coy smile returning.

“Actually, I have something for you.”

He blinked, looking up from his hands, “Oh?”

Alex’s face became more sombre, though there was even more love in his eyes, if that was at all possible. Philip realised with a start that there had always been one hand behind his father’s back, throughout this entire conversation. How had he not noticed until now?

“I want you to have this, no matter what decision you end up making,” Alex said gently, “It’s not me saying I want you to go or I want you to say or anything like that. All I’m trying to say is that I love you and I trust you, no matter what. You will always be my son, wherever you are.”

“Pops?” Philip trembled a little, his eyes widening.

Alex took a deep breath and passed Philip the seal skin he’d cut from his own, the one just for him that wouldn’t fit anyone else, would never belong to Alex again, never to anyone but Philip himself. It would work. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. He’d felt the tear himself, no exaggerating to say he’d felt a piece of his soul get ripped from him.

But his children owned his soul anyway. So, Alex could hand it over with a smile.

“Oh god, dad no…” Philip’s eyes spilled over, his hands shaking as he touched the light grey surface, felt the power and potential crackle through it like static, “No!”

“Yes,” Alex wasn’t dismayed or distressed by Philip’s reaction, he’d have been surprised if he was any different, “I’ve made my choice, Pip. It’s okay.”

“B-But I don’t…I don’t…” Philip stammered, clinging to the skin with white knuckles, reminding Alex of the way he used to cling to the cloth giraffe that stood kind of limply now, on the desk next to them.

“Philip,” Alex sighed, firmer, his smile fond, “I want to do this for you. Whether you use it or not, I needed to give you this. I think we both needed it.”

Philip knew he was right but he could see those ragged edges underneath the tight grain of the fur, how they shone with slick blood turning tacky with age. In that moment, the blood felt like both his and his father’s, a shared wound between the two of them.

“I can’t believe you did this for me,” Philip shuddered, stroking where the fur was softest just under the neck, his eyes devotedly following the ripples of the rich colour along its length, deep blues and brooding greys and speckles of black, like something painted by a talented, artistic hand. Though there was no doubt where it had come from, the colours were different from Alex’s coat, a lighter palette that they both somehow knew, despite the fact that she had no skin to speak of, came from Eliza.

It was beautiful. It was like a piece of a dream, somehow come through to reality by some mistake, something he shouldn’t have access to but here it was.

Thanks to his father.

“Philip,” Alex teased softly, his smile radiant with how much Philip was clearly enjoying his gift, pride and sacrifice and martyrdom making something hot and raw in his chest, “You should know by now that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

-

Philip wouldn’t ever use his skin, in the end. The exchange of it had healed what was left of the gap in between him and his family, it’s existence was a necessity but he never wore it. The most he would do would be to take it out when everything got too much, in the darkest, most difficult nights, when he felt like he was suffocating and wanted to scream and scream until something in his eyes burst, he’d grope blindly for wherever it was and hold it to his cheek, smelling the musty salt of it, feeling the wiry fur and he’d feel better again. Sometimes it would need just a little more.

He’d carefully ease himself out of bed, in later years trying not to jostle his sleeping girlfriend, then his wife, then maybe one of his children, tucked in between him and Theo after a nightmare. Sometimes she would wake despite his best efforts, Theo never slept deeply. Those amber eyes gleaming at him through the darkness, the small smile upturning her sleep heavy mouth, that would go a long way towards making him feel better but still. A kiss on the forehead, gently brushing a few curls out of her eyes and Theo would nod knowingly and cuddle back into the warm space he’d have left. He’d tiptoe around his bedroom, then in later years his college dorm, the bedroom of their first poky little flat above the local hairdressers, the bigger place of their own they got after the twins came along, the house they finally bought together when Theo fell pregnant for the third time. He’d gather up a t-shirt and shorts, no matter what time of year it was, he never really felt the cold. And then he’d quietly shut the door behind him and make his way out to the beach with his skin bundled in his arms.

There was always a beach, he and Theo made sure of that whenever they moved. There would always be a beach. Philip never minded, as long as there was night cooled sand underneath his feet and that regular crashing rhythm of the waves that never changed and never broke no matter whether he was in Oregon or Stanford or Vega Alta, where they’d gone for their honeymoon.

Philip would sit with the skin tucked around his shoulders, his eyes seeing so much farther than they ever did at any other time, right the way out to where the sea turned to ice, right down to where it turned to steam under the sheer power of the earth, where it ran into caves too deep to even comprehend, to shores no human foot had ever made an impression on. To the end of the world. To its beginning. Philip would breath deep, feeling eon’s worth of salt tickle the back of his chest, tasting like freedom and promise, he’d pull the skin close and just breath. And that would fix everything.

He’d remember who he was. He’d feel so loved.

Then he’d go back home, crawl into bed and bury his face in his Theo’s cloud of hair, run his hands along her soft skin, it’s earthy colours that made him certain he’d made the right decision. He’d return into the life he loved so much, writing poetry just like his Pops, lecturing and teaching, playing with his twin boys, his two little girls, safe and sure that this was the life he was meant to be living. The sea would always be there, the possibility would always be there.

But knowing that was all Philip ever needed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza pulls Alex from the brink

Little John Hamilton was born in August, the only one of the Hamilton children born in a hospital when he decided to make his messy, chaotic appearance a month early. The few days where Eliza was drifting in and out of consciousness and their little boy, looking so heartbreakingly small and new, was confined to an incubator with a pane of glass separating him from the world, were some of the worst of Alex’s whole life. To the point that when they were over, he didn’t want to think about them at all, pushing them back to a dark place he never went lightly.

This shook them both, resulted in a long gap before Eliza was looking at Alex carefully over the breakfast table, after their children had scattered, under Philip’s direction that Fort Hamilton needed a new coat of paint (a coat that ended up being a pretty startling shade of lime green, the cheapest Angie had been able to get their hands on), before she was reaching over and taking her husband’s hand and asking plainly if he wanted to have another baby because she felt ready. They’d gotten to the point where they didn’t need to dance around it.  

He’d nodded and asked for a few days to think about it, Eliza was happy to give him all the time he needed though she knew her husband better than she knew anyone else in the world. She knew that sometimes he needed a little shove.

Like now for instance, she thought, frowning critically at the clock in the kitchen.

“Pops still working?” Angie seemed to be able to hear her mother’s thoughts from all the way over where she was sat reading at the kitchen table, like their brains were tuned to the same radio station.

“Yes, he is,” Eliza said with the slightest hint of an exasperated sigh, dropping the dishtowel she was drying her hands on.

“Can you go talk to him?” Jamie piped up from where he was finishing up putting the dishes away, his sweet face worried, “I can’t remember the last time I saw him eat.”

“I will, little man, don’t you worry,” Eliza nodded decisively, stopping on her way out to squeeze his thin shoulder reassuringly.

Her dear little Jamie, he was always worrying about someone or something. But it never seemed to be himself.

Eliza could hear the arrhythmic, frenzied racket of Alex’s typewriter keys by the time she was halfway down the hall; it only made her bare feet move faster across the floor. Almost like in that panicky rattling machine gun fire, sounding somehow angry and scared at the same time, she could hear time running short.

Five nights this week he’d stayed in his office past nine in the evening. The first few times she’d let it go, thinking it was just because of his deadline for the new manuscript looming. But that had come and gone three days ago, usually the signal for Alex to become allergic to his typewriter and give himself a break. But here they were, ready to go and watch a movie together like they always did on Fridays after dinner, when the children were dizzy with the possibility of two whole days off stretching out in front of them. But the empty space on the couch where Alex would always sit with whoever was youngest sprawled across his stomach was like a bleeding gap in otherwise perfectly straight teeth.

Eliza had had enough.

She pushed back the heavy door of her husband’s office, wondering, just like every other time she did this, whether it only felt heavy because walking in here required something to be shoved out of the way. Whether she was always pushing against something physical, some kind of force, when she wanted to reach her Alex amid the fervour he sank into whenever he wrote.

“Hon?” she kept her voice easily casual, smiling playfully, “Movie time. Come on, get your ass out here.”

Alex looked…exhausted. Even from this distance.

His shoulders were tight and locked in a position that just couldn’t possibly be comfortable, looking more like the beams and rivets of a bridge trying to hold itself up under the furious buffeting of a storm than anything human. His hands shook, even as they stopped punching the typewriter keys and he turned to look at her curiously. His hair was scraped back and ragged looking, his glasses askew but he was making no move to fix the haphazard way they clung to his nose, his eyes were glassy and he turned to see his wife with the sharp, sudden manner of a guilty child caught in the middle of drawing on the wallpaper.

“Eliza?” he sounded confused and his voice wheezed, clearly, he hadn’t spoken out loud in a while. Maybe all day, at least since Philip had brought him that peanut butter sandwich at ten in the morning, in an effort to get his dad to have some form of breakfast when he’d failed to appear in his usual place at the kitchen table, gnawing on the end of a pencil and wrestling with the crossword in the paper until his children came to help him.

She gave a small, nearly grief-stricken sigh as she came up to him. This might be worse than she’d thought at first, a harder knot to untangle.

“Is everything okay, my love?” Eliza murmured gently, trying not to sound like she was pushing or pressing him, that only ever served to make Alex retreat further back into the cold shadow whatever was bothering him that he refused or felt unable to share.  

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” Alex looked nothing but puzzled, as if he couldn’t see what was around him.

Eliza bit her lower lip and gently rested her hands on his shoulders. They felt as unyielding and rigid as if she were reaching out to a marble statue. Cold too, not just Alex’s usual, familiar, soothing cold, but an unsympathetic kind of chill in his flesh under her palms.

She could see the blanket she made him wear around his shoulders when the weather was chill like it was today, the one to keep him warm, lying in a limp, useless bundle, tangled around the legs of his chair like an animal with broken bones.

“Well, I don’t know the answer to that, baby,” Eliza sighed, “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, a yawn stealing the last few words. Whether her husband was just being stubborn or whether he genuinely couldn’t see what she and the children saw, Eliza didn’t know yet. She wasn’t sure which option worried her more.

“I’ll explain it to you then,” she sighed patiently, “You haven’t been out of this room all day. You haven’t rested or eaten or drank or gotten any fresh air. All you’ve done is work like a demon even though you more than deserve a break...”

Alex flinched away from her words, his shoulders hunching defensively, “There’s still loads to do. Jefferson will want a new version by the end of the week, I need to start editing- “

“He hasn’t even looked at your first draft and you know it,” Eliza was unapologetic about interrupting, “How do you even know what he wants you to change yet?”

“I’m just trying to stay ahead, I have the time,” Alex’s voice hardened a little, like he thought he was doing something good and didn’t understand why he was being lectured, “It could take weeks if I don’t start now, he wants to get this published by the end of the year and you know what he’s like, the minute he gets on my ass- “

“Alexander,” Eliza closed her eyes, her voice not inviting any kind of argument.

Her husband looked at her, her tone making the dogged set of his face slip for the first time, so she could see the fear behind it. The fear she’d known would be there but still it hurt to see it, her heart aching for him, with him.

“I am fine,” Alex tried to insist one more time, though his voice shook. He wouldn’t be the Alex Eliza knew if he hadn’t hung on right to the last second.

She kissed the top of his head gently and began to work her fingers against his tense shoulders, massaging the way she knew he liked, a little rougher than most people would probably call relaxing but he loved it.

“Baby, you and me have been together for long enough that telling me you’re fine when you clearly aren’t just won’t work anymore,” she sighed softly, her voice a little playful, “When are you gonna learn that?”

“Maybe never,” Alex admitted, a low, muted purr beginning in the depths of his chest as she massages the muscles he hadn’t even been aware were pulsing with soreness until her deft fingers told him.

“My Alex…” Eliza whispered fondly, happy to feel him responding, his walls coming crumbling down.

Once he was slumped back in his chair, once something in the structure of his back had made a crack so loud Eliza had been genuinely terrified she’d broken his spine but Alex had groaned in bliss, she reached down and swept the blanket back over his shoulders, coming to sit on the edge of his desk, dark eyes watching him the way a lioness would watch her wounded mate.

“You going to tell me what’s wrong now?” she prompted gently, “The kids and I are really kind of worried about you.”

Alex winced guiltily, hands bunching in the blanket and eyes dropping to his lap, “I know, I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Eliza stretched a delicate hand out and caught his chin, carefully lifting his eyes back up to her, “You just need to let us help.”

Alex wondered if he’d ever stop being so rattled, so deeply touched and thrown, those times it would occur to him that he had not just one someone, but six someone’s, willing to help him and carry his burdens with him. He hoped not.

“I don’t even really know myself,” he confessed, his voice an exhausted groan, “I…I haven’t been able to think straight for a while, actually.”

Eliza swallowed, keeping her hand under his chin, comforting now rather than directing, “Since…since Johnny was born? Or since I asked if you wanted to have another baby?”

Alex jerked a little, almost like her words had hit some nerve, a sharp, unhappy signal to his brain.

“Oh Alex,” Eliza had been afraid of this, seeing flashes of it in how he’d cling to their littlest boy even when he needed to go down for a nap or wanted to go running off with his siblings, in how he’d been acting towards her, his natural guard dog tendency propelled to the level where he’d grow restless and anxious if he didn’t know where she was. She’d come home late from work a few times without texting him to let him know, the result of some poor kid’s sudden nosebleed or a forgotten tower of homework sheets needing marking appearing out of nowhere, only to come back and find him pacing restlessly, pouncing on her as soon as she came through the door, clinging to her all while insisting that he was fine, he wasn’t worried. Nothing was wrong.

Was there any worse sound in the world than someone you loved telling you they were fine when you could clearly see the lie in their eyes?

“It’s been fifteen months,” Alex muttered tensely, unconsciously flinching away from her gentle thumbs tracing arcs across his cheeks, as they brought him closer and closer to falling apart, “And everything turned out fine. Why would that still be upsetting me?”

Eliza stilled her fingers, eyes turning down. He’d clearly meant it to sound casual, light, a breezy sarcastic dismissal as if to suggest that the idea was ridiculous. As if to suggest that fourteen months was an eternity, a life time. More than enough to bury the fear of an unthinkable reality that hadn’t even come to pass, had never been anything more than a nightmare he’d had while fighting sleep in a hard, awkward hospital chair between a painfully dozing wife and a baby struggling to breathe.

That was probably how he’d meant it. But it came out as a plea. An appeal for an answer, to tell him why he still felt so wretched after he’d convinced himself he had no right to feel what he felt.

“Why would I still be so scared?” he murmured and there they were, the tears and the shaking lower lip as he was faced with her unconvinced eyes.

Eliza moved without any kind of hesitation, giving a small shaky gasp of her own, though it had the faint taste of relief, hugging him tightly as he crumbled.

“Alex, there’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with being scared, it must have been so hard for you,” Eliza whispered soothingly as she rubbed his back and felt the shoulder of the light knitted jumper she was wearing grow damp, “I can’t even imagine…”

She herself was left with very little tangible memory of what had happened. The medication, her own mind deciding what should and shouldn’t be kept, what was worth holding onto to save her more pain, had left her with only poorly edited movie highlights. Just odd half memories of a very scared, crying Alex calling the hospital somewhere off to the left while she lay on the sofa in a tight little ball, realising those low, distressed sounds of pain she could hear were coming from her, of a very uncomfortable bed and people she didn’t know moving around her and touching her and asking her to do things she was too tired and too scared to do, of being so hot she felt she’d melt the flesh off her own bones, of sweat dripping from her nose and settling uncomfortably in the cleft of her upper lip, of straining until she could see stars and galaxies behind her tightly shut eyes, wondering where the fuck Alex was, not realising the hand in her own and the voice in her ear was him. And then nothing but dreaming and then waking up in her own bed in her own home with her little Johnny tucked in next to her, crying to be fed. Back to normal. A short stumble from the well-worn, much loved track of her life, where she’d walked before except this time she’d staggered in the grass but in no time at all she was back on her feet and everything was okay again.

Alex had never offered her his version, what he’d seen from where he’d been stood. Eliza had waited, thinking he’d give it to her when he felt ready, when he’d processed and refined it in his own mind. And then eventually, after days had gone by and his lips had stayed shut, it all got lost in the messy, confusing joy of having a new baby to know and care for and fall in love with every new day. If it had ever occurred to Eliza again, it had been in the quiet moments just before falling asleep, when she and Alex would be wrapped up together, kissing languidly, losing the stressed of the day in each other’s lips or when she’d be leaning in the doorway of the nursery, listening as he sang a lullaby to their son and she’d never wanted to ruin those moments. Suddenly, the comforting arms of their usual lives, the routine that fuelled and carried them, had been open and offered and they’d taken it.  

Now she was cursing herself to the moon and back. Why had it taken her so long, until three days ago when she’d taken his hand across the kitchen table and watched him flinch, to realise how he’d let this poison him? As her husband sobbed bitterly against his shoulder, she saw this cluttered, darkened room for what it was; an old fashioned, Victorian asylum of his own making, the kind of place for people who thought walls and distractions and denial were a cure. And she’d let him fester here. Because she’d been too  _ busy? _

“Alexander,” she murmured, once his crying had subdued to broken moans, gently detaching him and moving him back so her eyes could meet his.

“Sorry,” he gasped, his throat raw, “D-Didn’t mean to…y’know…”

“To what?” Eliza managed a smile, “To finally tell me what’s been upsetting you? To finally letting me in?”

“To get snot all over your jumper,” Alex shrugs, returning her smile shakily but genuinely.

There he was. There was her Alex.

“You know how you can pay me back?” Eliza murmured, “Talk.”

Alex’s smile turned rueful but a little fonder, leaning back in his chair and giving a bone deep, shuddering sigh, pushing trails of hair free of his damp face, “How did you know I was…bad? I didn’t even know.”

She folded her hands in her lap, shrugging, “It’s easier to see hurt when it’s in someone you love. Sometimes it hides, when it’s your own.”

“Yeah,” Alex was given the image of a spider with oddly disjointed legs and sickly shining skin, curled up in some dark corner of his chest, pulling in tight into the shadows that were already there every time he tried to peer at it, “Guess so.”

Like half a drop of paint in a shining dewdrop of water, the realisation bled through him. Oh fuck, it was Friday night, what the hell was he doing in his office? The kids would be waiting for him. His joints hurt so much, he was desperately hungry, his throat felt like it was lined with sand. His heart ached, not with emotion, not any more at least, but with exhaustion, a sting like lactic acid. Like it had been carrying too much for too long.

Eliza pulled focus away from everywhere it burned and throbbed and shook, reaching down and taking his hands, “Talk,” she said again, a gentle command. A final, much needed push to do something unpleasant but necessary.

“I was just so scared,” Alex whispered miserably, his eyes settling on his own fingers resting on her palm, where the dark ink from his skin was staining hers.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza groaned sympathetically.

“I’ve been scared for myself before,” he continued shakily, “I’m used to that. I can endure it. But I’ll never get used to being scared for you. Or our babies. I can’t…two seconds of it and I fall apart.”

Eliza held his hands tightly, her eyes understanding, knowing him acutely. It relieved Alex to see it.

“The day each one of them was born, they’re the best days of my life,” the words were flowing from him now, like some infected wound had been lanced, “And to have it go so wrong? It hurt. It really, really hurt, Betsey…I didn’t know what to do…”

The tears came again but they came with words, everything Alex had pushed away at first only to find that some things fought back too hard. How lost and scared he’d felt when Eliza slipped under and didn’t respond to his begging for her to open her eyes. How he’d flinched away from the beeping of the machines screaming in alarm at him, the acrid smells of medicine and glaring whiteness. He’d never felt so out of place as he had there, in the hospital where nothing made sense and everything was artificial and so different from what he knew and Eliza was hurt, her chest heaving in shallow pain, and he wasn’t even allowed to hold his own son.

Alex wasn’t even aware of the exact words that were coming out of him in a ragged, pained flow, just the feeling of loss and threat of seeing everything he loved dragged away with agonising slowness by a beast he couldn’t see or understand or fight against but he knew reeked of antiseptic and had syringe points for fingers and spoke in medical jargon. He’d been hiding from it and now it was pacing around him threateningly.

But Eliza stood between it and him. With her kind eyes and her thumb pressing into his palm to remind him that she was here and not going anywhere, not minding or caring that the ink was crawling from his fingers to hers, along with other things. She took his words and held them up with him, turned them over in her hands like paper covered with harmful words getting screwed up and balled down until it was nothing.

Each of them believed that the other was stronger than they were themselves. But the truth was hidden from both of them, that each of them could be as strong as they needed to be, fiercer than they’d ever believe possible, if it was for the sake of the other. They just took it in turns; today Eliza was holding up Alex but some other time he’d do the same for her.

The perfect synchrony with which they both followed the same beat, danced the same steps alongside each other, felt so natural that they didn’t even realise it. They just worked in it.

“I just don’t understand some parts of this world,” Alex finished shakily, smiling sheepishly through his tears, “I’ve been here for years but I still feel out of place sometimes without you.”

Eliza considered this, pressing her lips to his knuckles as she lifted his hand to her mouth, “Well then fuck it.”

“Huh?” Alex tilted his head curiously.

“Forget the world,” she shrugged, her smile reckless and a little wild, drunk on the feeling that came after successfully doing something that had at first seemed impossible, “If there’s no place for you there then it’s the world’s loss. All that matters is that you have a place here. With us.”

That made him smile, a real, content smile that was the last sign Eliza needed that she’d brought her husband home.

“Guess so,” he grinned, a little awed by the metier of the woman he loved, the way she found solutions for every problem his runaway mind cooked up.

Eliza leant forward and kissed him, feeling him come alive under her mouth like he was shaking off the last of the cold after a long time wandering outside. They were both grinning and giggling in something like relief as they came apart again.

“Okay. Movie night,” Alex said decisively, moving back and rising it of his chair with a truly grim symphony of popping joints and creaking bones that made them both wince, “Holy shit. I sound like I’m made of castanets…”

“That’s an insult to the instrument of the castanet,” Eliza hummed, taking his hand and pulling him along, loving the feeling of pulling him out of the clutches of this office and what it had come to represent in her mind, “Come on. Need to get down there before the the kids have another violent debate over whether Pixar movies count as Disney movies or whether they’re a separate thing.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen AJ fight so passionately…” Alex muttered, filing away a reminder to himself that he needed to have a talk with his namesake about the virtues of arguing with your words rather than pillows thrown at faces.

None of the children said anything, it could even have been called a little bit of an anti-climax as Alex meandered with a deliberately crafted casual air, scooped Johnny up from where he was quite happily rolling on his back on the floor, safe and out of range of the pieces of popcorn Philip and AJ were throwing at each other across the room, and flopped down on the sofa loudly announcing, “Right, let’s do this!” in his typically animated voice that hadn’t been heard by any of them for weeks. The kids just nodded and fell back into their usual places, even Theo who’d been making an appearance at more and more of these nights, slotted easily into the scene like there’d always been a space for her, tucked happily under Philip’s arm as they somehow made a fairly small beanbag work for two people.

And life found its feet again and went on as normal. Nothing said, nothing questioned.

Only little Johnny seemed to feel it necessary to make a point as he curled up contentedly in his Pops’ lap. He was a quiet little thing, the longest of any of their babies to find his voice though his parents often saw so much awareness in his dark, wide eyes, it was a little jarring. He looked like someone who was simply holding on to his words until he was ready. So now, he didn’t tell his father how pleased he was to see him again, how much he’d missed him, that he hoped he was feeling okay. He just craned his neck so he could place both his hands on Alex’s cheeks and squished them down, making him laugh and catch one chubby wrist to press a kiss to the little grasping palm.

But Alex understood the message just fine.

Eliza gave a small, happy sigh as she softly closed Angie’s bedroom door. She always said goodnight to her little girl last of all her children, smoothing down her curls and kissing her freckled forehead, running her hands along the seam of her thin body under the blankets so she was tucked in nice and tight, knowing she’d do that thing where she pulled her blankets right up over her head as soon as the door closed. It always made Eliza a little nervous when she did that. It made her wonder what exactly her daughter felt the need to hide from.

Butit, then again, some things she just couldn’t change. Eliza could waste her time away wishing and praying and pleading to ears that she couldn’t see for her Angie not to feel so scared all the time, for Jamie not to be so paralysed with fear that he always sent his older brother to the cashier at the store, for AJ to get some sense of which of his thoughts should be allowed to leave his mouth and which ones should be wrestled back so he didn’t get into so many fights at school. She could wish until she was blue in the face for all that to just disappear, to just get cleaned away like it was some kind of dirt smudge on her family, but what would that accomplish? She’d be just like her mother, fighting to change what she saw as mistakes, rather than working with them and their quirks to build them a corner of the world to feel safe and accepted in.

Her job as a mother wasn’t to push against her children, to treat them like modelling clay that could be shaped however she saw fit if it was only worked with hard enough of a grip. Her job was to love who they were, every single inch of them, and help them. Nothing more than that. Eliza knew that one rule like it had been stamped on the inside of her eyelids from the first time she felt Philip’s tiny hands nudge at her from inside her own skin like he could sense her out there and wanted to find his place in her arms.

Over and over again she told them how much she loved them, every single day, before they set off for school, when they gave her their first smile of the day with their sleep clouded faces, when they came to her with hurts and aches and fears, but it would never feel like enough.

Eliza wiped some tears that had seeded in the corners of her eyes somewhere along her following the thread of her tangled thoughts and pulled the breezy, translucent robe Angelica had send her from Paris, along with a note that read sometimes aesthetics are more important than function, tighter around her body, dressed only in tiny shorts and a tank top. She felt like somewhere along the line, she’d finally adapted to the weather here.

Eliza was halfway down the corridor to her bedroom when she stopped, frowning in aversion and mistrust at the somehow ajar door of Alex’s office, her heart suddenly tripling in density and sinking to the soles of her bare feet when she heard movement and saw shadows as someone, though not  _ someone _ , who else would it be, moved back and forth in between a soft light source.

She thought she’d gotten through to him…

The relief was so strong she could taste it, when she poked her head around the door and saw her husband was only sifting through papers, balling them up and tossing them over his shoulder, landing them square in the wastepaper basket every time. He hadn’t even sat down and his spine still stood tall and shoulders dropped in the same relaxed manner. He was still here.

“What are you doing?” she chuckled softly, padding into the small room, admiring how the light of just the one lamp made such fractured, almost artistic shadows up the oak panelled walls; the globe and the old barometer he’d fished out of a garage sale and the old-fashioned divers helmet that gave Eliza the creeps suddenly throwing up shadows that looked like abstract sculptures that belonged outside of modern art museums. 

“Realising that I write absolute shit when I’m depressed,” Alex grunted nonchalantly, throwing another tightly screwed up projectile of poetry almost violently over his shoulder, “All of this is crap. Whoever said artists need to be ‘tortured’ or ‘crazy’ to make good stuff was talking out of their ass.”

Eliza snickered; her husband had a deep and profound love of language, including cuss words which he seemed to collect like he collected his curios. They went to the little artsy picture house on the edge of the village square once a fortnight on the ever-increasing funds in the old coffee tin on the kitchen counter that served as his swear jar.

“You might be right,” she allowed, coming up and putting her hands over his, stilling his frantic movements, “But the clear out can wait until tomorrow. You need some sleep.”

Alex didn’t put up a fight, letting her have his hands, leaning into her touch, “Okay. Or. Hear me out?”

Eliza tilted her head suspiciously.

“We don’t sleep and instead we make love until the sun comes up?” Alex grinned crookedly, raising his eyebrows.

Eliza had to snort with laughter. Oh, her Alex was definitely back.

“That’s not sleep!” she protested with absolutely no enthusiasm, “You need some rest not…more work!”

“Work?” he repeated incredulously, winding his arms around her hips, his grin widening as he knew he had her, “Don’t be so crass, my love, since when is our heartfelt, passionate desire  _ work?” _

“My god,” Eliza bubbled up with laughter, “No more cheesy romance novel talk, okay?”

“It’s not cheesy if I mean it,” he grins, “Trust me, I’m a writer.”

She gave a soft, raillery groan of defeat as she tilted her neck up and kissed him, her own hands coming up to his neck, where the pads of her fingers could stroke the line of his hair at the back, where they were pulled taut as guitar strings into the tangled knot on top of his head, keeping his glasses perched above his forehead. It felt too taut, even to her. As their kiss deepened and his mouth opened under hers, lips parting to let her sink her teeth into his lower lip for just a moment, just to make him gasp, her fingers reached up to unwind it all, gently pulling the hair tie free so his hair fell in an okay black snarl around his face that she immediately began combing through with her fingers until it relented and became soft and silky, melting and relaxing almost in perfect beat with Alex himself.

Eliza was just about to start pulling him towards the bedroom but that was when Alex stiffened, pulling back and away.

She pouted adorably, her eyes demanding an explanation for why he wasn’t hastily removing her clothes right this second.

“Eliza, what you said…” Alex murmured breathlessly, “My answer’s yes.”

She blinked, not understanding at first, “Yes to what?” until she remembered and her eyes widened, the sincerity in his eyes falling in place with the exact thoughts she’d just been thinking out in the hall. With the thing she’d deliberately left out of their conversation earlier, not wanting to give him too much too soon, taking small steps, the last thing she ever wanted to do being demanding too much of him when he was fragile.

But now he was saying yes.

“Alex,” she whispered, pupils widening, stroking the hard angles of his jaw, “Baby, we don’t have to, you don’t need to…just to please me…”

“No, it’s okay,” he insisted firmly, “I want to. I think I…need to?” He looked confused for a moment, shrugging and going a little red, knowing Eliza would understand even when he didn’t completely, “I’m ready. If you are?”

Eliza bit her bottom lip, excitement shining through her eyes, “Yes. God, yes. It won’t be like last time, I promise, everything will be fine, I’ll even stay in bed towards the end if you want, I’ll take whatever vitamins you throw at me, I’ll even do the freaking yoga, I’ll-”

Alex silenced her, feeling way too much love for her in that one moment not to press his lips to hers, pulling her right up off her feet so her legs locked around his hips, filling every break for breath with delighted, musical laughter.

Another one. It felt right.

Now the few short steps to their bedroom felt like too great a distance to cross, it may as well be miles. Alex wanted her  _ now,  _ with a coppery tasting urgency that couldn’t be denied. He set her back on her feet for just a second, long enough to sweep his arm across his desk with a frighteningly powerful stroke, sending pens and scraps of paper and mugs to the floor to either clatter to a stop or smash, even his typewriter, heavy and solid as stone, moved aside humbly with no resistance, thankfully landing safe in his chair.

“Oh god, Alex,” Eliza breathed, feeling her heart race as he turned back to her with eyes almost black, her whole body shudder with desire and want as he picked her back up and laid her out on his desk, not quite clear, she could feel paper at her back.

The ink must have been still wet. When they were finally done after one, two, three, four sharp, blissful explosions of fireworks behind her eyes, when her long legs slipped exhaustedly from around Alex’s shoulders and he let the tension in his muscles unwind, when she sat up and stretched her arms above her head, she heard his low, raspy laughter.

“Whoops…”

Eliza thought they were the impressions of his fingers at first, of his hands passionately exploring every inch of her as if not wanting to leave any part out, but she remembered he never pressed hard enough to bruise.

His words. His inky scrawl, smudged and spreading curious limbs along the miniscule paths in her skin but the words were still discernible. As he’d rocked her against the hard wood of his desk, crashing into her with a powerful, heated rhythm composed just for her, like waves crashing against the shoreline, taking it and shaping it into something new and beautiful, the wet ink must have been stamped onto her skin. Like a tattoo, fragments of his writing running along her arms and up her sides and across her hips where she could chase them around her curves and joints. Eliza could see the funny way he curled the tails of his g’s and how he dotted his i’s with diagonal, hasty slashes, how he’d misspelled a few words in his hurry to get all of his ideas on the page, handfuls of words so beautiful she wanted to cry.

All night she refused to let him clean them off, reading them over and over as she curled against him in the warmth of their bed, seeing them behind her eyelids when she eventually drifted off. 

No way was she letting them disappear down some drain, lost to the water, another piece of him going to the sea. They were staying until they faded, became part of her skin. It was like he’d given her a gift.

And, in a few weeks, they’d realise he’d given her another gift. The words he’d write carefully across her stomach to celebrate and welcome their new baby would make both of them cry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex contemplates

Alex realised, as he watched his family grow, as he shifted through college applications with Philip and learned what certain times in the month not to touch Angie’s stuff without permission and to make sure the kitchen was well stocked with hot chocolate and kissed and murmured to Eliza’s belly every night, that he was never going to stop worrying about his kids. Whether he still had to change their diapers (which he was getting very good at doing one handed, saved time) and remind them with rain boot went on which foot or he stayed up until midnight pretending to Eliza and himself that he was really, really invested in this Civil War documentary so he could meet them coming in from their first high school party. Some of it was the kind of worries he heard the other parents talking about on the afternoons he’d spend leaning against the school railings, on his own, humans tended to avoid him when he didn’t have Eliza with him to wind her arm through his and help him feel like he belonged there. Something in his eyes, she reassured him one day when he was feeling sad about it, after he’d seen a few words passed between two of the younger moms less used to him, words even his ears couldn’t pick up but theym came with hard lined mouths and raised eyebrows. Never a good sign. Eliza let him rest his head on her bump and stroked his hair and reassured him that it was just his eyes.

“You just look so…focused,” she’d smiled gently, leaning down and kissing his temple, “Like you’re thinking such deep thoughts. People just don’t want to interrupt you.”

That had made him feel a little better but still, as he waited for those of his kids too small to be trusted to walk home on their own (Philip elected to walk home on his own, Alex knew fine well, so he and Theo could go down to the beach and kiss) he couldn’t help but feel like he was eavesdropping without meaning to. Standing on the fringes like a badly cast extra in a play where he didn’t know half of his lines, someone shoved on from the wings and the last minute, shuffling his feet until little Johnny would come sprinting out with his too big backpack and Jamie’s eyes would brighten just from seeing his Pops across the yard and Alex would find his place in it all again.

Still, it was good to know part of his life sat somewhere on the axis of normalcy, that he could pretend, as he pulled his grey sweater closer around him even though the day was unusually warm for Oregon because the seawater in his blood made him cold, that he was a normal human man with a normal heartbeat and a social security number and a wedding certificate. Who had some job that didn’t involve pouring out his soul, where he sat in a cubicle and, what, looked at numbers? Went to meetings? Made  _ mood boards? _ It was half unsettling, half stimulating to feel like that.  It helped that the other parents around him were also fretting that their sons stayed up too late or their toddlers ate too much sugar or didn’t look where they were going when they crossed the road.

Though it never lasted long. It never could, not when the possibility of a life so different none of these people could even imagine it when their minds were at their freest lay just within his reach. Physically at least, mentally what was left of his skin might as well have been a threadbare cotton scarf from the back of a junk shop with no more magic than anything. Right now, the sound of two heartbeats sending bright red pearly blood in a healthy rush under Eliza’s skin, sounding like the sea itself, powerful and natural and very pregnant, was all he needed to satisfy his wanderlust.

The invisible but undeniable wound in reality that separated him and the mothers and grandparents and scant few fathers, in Alex’s opinion, was a peculiar thing. And none of them would ever know it.

How didn’t they  _ see  _ it?

But then he had to stop worrying about that, he only ever worried about things like that when he was alone and here were his boys, his AJ and Jamie and Johnny, sauntering and hurrying and sprinting respectively over to him though they all knew they had no choice about the huge hug from their Pops, regardless of their varying levels of enthusiasm.

Basic mathematics and simple facts of biology told him he couldn’t hold all of their hands as they walked home, as much as his heart ached to. So instead Johnny clung to his back, stroking his fingers, still adorably chubby with fading baby fat as his body lengthened and his proportions fell into place, through his dad’s hair. Babies always seemed to have a fascination with Alex’s soft dark hair, at the perfect length for grabbing. 

Jamie held the hand of his dad’s that wasn’t weighed down with too many heavy schoolbags for a normal man his age to really carry but he lifted them easily. AJ opted out of the whole affair with a wrinkle of his nose, keeping a teenage respectable distance up ahead, though Alex’s quick, sharp eyes didn’t miss how his namesake stooped halfway along their meandering path home to pick up a smooth, palm sized rock of a somehow instantly calming slate grey, shot through with exposed veins of deep green sea glass where the endless churning of the waves had hurled two things never meant to mix into one beautiful object. Alex didn’t need to ask his son to know that the stone was for Angie, to add to her collection of the pebbles and trinkets she kept so she could run the edges of her thumbs along the worn places and smooth parts when her breathing got fast and her sweat ran cold and her heartbeat got too quick to bear.

Maybe his little girl felt some kind of kinship, an understanding, with those stones who were also wearied from a long and difficult journey with an uncertain end. Or maybe she aspired to be like them, to have all her hurt and torn and vulnerable parts heal smooth and clean or be patched with something that sparkled beautifully. Either way, they brought her some modicum of comfort and Alex loved AJ so much in that moment he couldn’t speak, for finding Angie another moment of peace along the shoreline.

Another thing his eyes, trained and honed to sharp points by days spent in water so dark and thick he’d once wondered if the night sky had begun to run like candle wax and drip into the sea, another thing they didn’t miss was how AJ’s ears picked up a little, how he stood a little straighter when his reaching for the stone he’d decided must be Angie’s brought him in reach of the sea. Alex could almost see ethereal fingers of salt tinged, bitter air, reaching for him, seizing his attention, pulling him off balance.

He couldn’t help it, he bristled. Instincts that weren’t as buried as he’d like to pretend rose at the threat to his pup and pulled his lips back from his teeth a little and tensed his muscles so Johnny blinked dolefully, made his black pupils widen and fill and leak until they flooded most of his eyes with darkness.

And a solid, heavy pounding in his heart that thickened the lining of his throat with acidic, tarry fear, beating a single word,  _ no, no, no, no, no- _

But the moment passed so quickly it was almost anticlimactic, in a way. But Alex would take anticlimactic, he’d take it with desperate enthusiasm and breathless relief, he’d claw at it until the joints in his fingers broke. As long as there was that tiny, daring, contemptuous smile on AJ’s face, so slight Alex couldn’t even say if his son was aware of it himself, something so youthfully disrespectful, something that said, ‘ _ not this time’. _

Hopefully not the next time either, or the time after that or any time.

Alex honestly wasn’t that worried, as he watched AJ lazily toss the stone from one hand to the other, catching it deftly like it’s path through the air behaved according to his playful wishes rather than any law of physics before stowing it away in his jacket pocket.

He wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Maybe his wanderlust tainted blood became diluted for every baby he and Eliza had; maybe the stranger currently growing under and rounding out his wife’s skin so beautifully right now only had a sixth of the saltwater than ran through poor Philip’s veins. Maybe Alex had proven himself with his first sacrifice, the one he’d made for his eldest son that he was willing to make for every one of his babies but prayed he’d never have to (not least because he wasn’t sure his skin held enough material, he wasn’t exactly the biggest of guys, physically) but maybe the debt had been paid and the scales had been levelled with just the one. Maybe it was just a numbers game, like whatever precise, three decimal point percentages determined which of their children got Alex’s ability to fold his tongue in three different places or Eliza’s uncanny knack of licking her own elbow with her unusually long tongue and Philip had simply drawn the scrap of paper with the black dot staining it.

Alex didn’t want it to be that, that concept terrified him, for there to be a roll of the dice marring every time he and his Betsey made something so beautiful. Of course, there  _ always  _ was, a million different near misses and sidestepped eventualities for diseases and mishaps on the cellular level that even Alex, with all of the medical texts he devoured, didn’t have names for. But this was one more immediate. One he knew he was solely to blame for.

No, for all the evidence that was stacked against it, as much as it went against so much of what his tired, permanently shadowed eyes had seen, Alex wanted to believe life had just given him a break.

Whatever it was, wherever this little quirk of fate had come from, whether or not Alex would continue to worry for the rest of his life about it, none of his other children felt the same pull to the sea Philip had. For them, it was something they barely recognised, that they couldn’t pin down enough to name. Waking up every morning with the scent of salt in their noses from the breeze wriggling its way in through the cracks in the windowpanes sated it just fine.

Alex was dizzyingly relieved by this, so grateful he could barely stand it. He’d have torn his pelt to shreds for that, for his children to have a normal childhood. Instead, he’d been given it as some gift. He could count his gifts on one hand; Eliza, his children, his mother and the life she’d given him. This. And they still felt like so much more than he deserved.

Of course, he knew Eliza’s genetics had a lot to do with it, her calming influence, the sense of peace she seemed to have that she shared so selflessly with everyone she met. Alex made sure to praise every inch of her, her glorious human body where he could taste the unfailing lushness of greenery between her thighs and the tranquillity and immortality of the earth in the hollows of her neck and the agelessness of the stars on her tongue, whenever he found the opportunity. So unfamiliar, so contrasting with his own makeup but he loved it too much for words. He knew he had more to thank her for than he could ever know, the ability of his children to make their homes on land, to find peace in a way he never would, was the least of them.

Eliza was his world, his entire planet and he worshipped her accordingly.

Satisfied, watching AJ return to the path, kicking up sand idly with the toe of his boots in blissful witlessness to the forces moving around him seeking to pull him in one direction or the other, Alex let himself drift back into the immediate. He re-tuned his mind to what was happening around him, his ears back to picking up the gentle, happy babble of Johnny perched on his shoulders. His youngest never seemed to fall silent, having taken the longest of all of them to find his voice and learn to talk he was now apparently making up for lost time, narrating every little detail like he was just so happy to be here. Alex was in love with it, often sitting the little boy on his lap while he worked, letting him give his own often hilarious interpretation of what his Pops was writing. Honestly, his ideas were often a lot better than what Jefferson ended up publishing.

“So, I’m gonna sleep forever and ever ‘cos there’s no school so that means no alarm clocks,” Johnny declared, bunching and un-bunching his hands in Alex’s hair, enjoying the softness and the scent of it he’d forever associate with comfort and home, “So I’m gonna wake up with the birdies and then me and mama gonna have pancakes for breakfast and I can have as many blueberries as I want, gonna eat a  _ million  _ blueberries!”

“Oh really?” Jamie sounded bemused, nodding and smiling his way enthusiastically through his little brother’s babble though he must hear it from first thing in the morning when Johnny woke up in the bed next to his own until the little boy fell asleep, “That’s a lot.”

“Yes!” Johnny nodded proudly, “A million million blueberries an’ then AJ’s gonna take me to storytime at the library- “

Up ahead of them, AJ stiffened immediately at the sound of his name, turning quickly on his heels with an expression Alex rarely saw on his namesake’s face. Uncertainty. Even worse,  _ silent  _ uncertainty.

“Is he?” the corners of Alex’s mouth twitched upwards a little, “But doesn’t mama always take you to storytime? And I seem to remember AJ saying he’d rather backflip off the end of the pier wearing nothing but his gym socks than get up before ten on a Saturday morning.”

Johnny frowned a little, his young face wrinkling up at this wobbly piece of pavement jutting up and ruining the perfect logical path he’d constructed, “But he said he would, he said he’d take me so I could hear the one about the billy goats again, that’s my favourite! He promised!”

AJ blushed a deep and intense crimson, one Alex recognised well, having felt it’s burn on his own face many, many time. AJ did nearly everything exactly the same as Alex, so many little physical quirks and idiosyncrasies he saw in his son like the weirdest mirror ever.

“Look, I said I’d take you and I will, okay?” he hissed, narrowing his eyes at his littlest brother, “So shh!”

Alex tilted his head, growing more curious by the second, almost in perfect timing with his smile growing harder to hide, “So I suppose we’ll be fishing you out of the dock sometime around noon on Saturday then?”

AJ gritted his teeth, “It’s no big deal…”

“Just trying to help your mama and me out?” Alex smirked, “Cos that doesn’t sound like my boy. Maybe there’s another reason you’re super eager to get to the library at nine o’clock on a sunny Saturday morning…”

AJ stared resolutely at his scuffed shoes, his shoulders tense, “I just wanted to, okay?”

Alex hitched Johnny up a little higher, experiencing one of those moments of clarity that make children firmly believe their parents are omniscient, “And I’m just saying that I think the reason you so desperately want to…is maybe the very nice young man from your class that reads to the children and volunteers behind the counter.”

AJ went even redder, if that were even possible reaching colours that probably went right off the visible spectrum, “No! Course not! I barely even know him, why would I…that’s just…you don’t…oh, shut up!”

He reeled around and stomped off for home at twice the pace, just a stone’s throw up ahead, with the back of his neck still blazing and his posture wired, all of it telling Alex that he had hit the mark. Not that he minded in the slightest that his son was so clearly crushing on the sweet young man who gave up his weekend mornings to read picture books to children and process late fees, who wore a silver star of David around his neck proudly and complimented Johnny on whatever unusually patterned pair of socks he was wearing every single day. Nothing about that situation brought him anything but delight. 

He himself had felt a flutter of the heart when he stumbled across a word in a book one day, a description that he felt he’d known all his human life but had never heard it verbalised until that moment. Bisexual. Devoted to one, not because of her gender. A desire just for beautiful people, one way or the other. Eliza had smiled when he’d excitedly shown her, after he’d finished his rushed, ecstatic explanation and she’d come to him the next day with three strips of bright cloth sewn together, colours that seemed to just _ go _ together and mean something just by being adjacent, forming an upraised fist, a straight back, a proud and bold smile just by standing back to back. He’d hung the flag up in his office and even now, when it was fraying around the edges and getting a little dusty, much in the way that the years were carving their mark on Alex’s face, it still brought a spark of pride and self whenever his eyes caught it.

All he wanted was for his children to feel the same. Whatever gave them that spark, whatever shape it took, whatever title it carried, he just wanted them to find it. And maybe AJ had found it with his library boy with the carefully written nametag that read ‘Elijah.’

“Whassup with AJ?” Johnny tilted his head, the little heart shaped face and rounded cheeks he’d inherited from Eliza creasing in brotherly concern.

Jamie gave a knowing sort of look and Alex grinned at him, putting a finger to his lips.

“Don’t you worry about your brother, Johnny boy,” he reached up and took hold of his littlest son’s hand, “He’s going to be just fine.”

He had to tell Eliza about this.

-

Years could pass, the world could turn as often as it liked, go up and down and even sideways but people in small towns would always talk.

Why would they ever stop, when the Hamilton family, rattling around in their cottage by the sea that, despite the fact it had been gladly utilised to within an inch of its life, somehow still deserved the title of folly, provided them with so much material? 

Not that they didn’t like them, gossip was never intended as malicious as it was passed back and forth across the bar or the gingham laminated table covers at the café or the dented, scratched Formica of the diner. It was part of living there, there was nothing but fondness in it. This was how affection was shown in such places, through raised eyebrows and critical remarks and discussion, the way people would get in groups to pick apart their favourite books or dissect much appreciated films. People talked about how the librarian really needed to stop letting his cats wander around the stacks, shedding on all the sofas and knocking the reference cards all higgledy piggledy but to any out of towners, they boasted proudly of their many feline library assistants, showing off their library cards with inky paw marks as the signature. The people talked about how the old woman who spent her mornings combing the beach, indifferent to the weather like a well-seasoned veteran grandmother unmoved by the temporary tantrums of their beloved charges, armed with a surprisingly deadly and well cared for pickaxe. As she broke apart the limestone shores and scaled the cliffs in search of fossils, her neighbours would tut and roll their eyes and bemoan that they’d be calling in air support to save her old bones from certain death any day now. And yet, they listened with equal enthusiasm to her breathlessly excited descriptions of the treasures she’d uncovered, to the difference between ammonites and trilobites, her hastily scribbled replications of complicated evolutionary trees on the back of the napkin that had previously been wrapped around the postman’s scotch on the rocks. They even threw her a party in the church hall when one of her papers was accepted into whatever journal published such things, none of them even had a clue.

And they talked about the Hamiltons.  

No, in the small seaside village that seemed to have reached a kind of stasis of its own around the nineteen forties, aesthetically at least, the unusual, slightly isolated family were well loved. Respected even, protected and conferred over in much the same fashion as the townspeople talked about the various myths and legends specific to their little hamlet.

Because that’s what they were, really. In a strange kind of way that not even the townspeople themselves could really put their finger on (not that it was in any of their natures to go finger prodding, more to accept what was there at face value), it was like a paragraph of one of the leather bound tomes full of the area’s fireside stories had floated free, perhaps knocked loose by the idle paw of one of the cats, caught on some breeze and materialised in real life.

Ethereally beautiful parents, living secretive, secluded lives, appearing as if by some magic hand in hand along the beach at dusk or sat together on one of the benches at the tiny communal park, very, very occasionally emerging for the evening in the town’s one restaurant. Eliza did spend what little free time she seemed to have trying to get involved with the community’s bustling life, as friendly and infectiously sunny as ever, apparently only growing more beautiful as motherhood and a little maturity suited her. It was as if she just radiated a pure and uncomplicated certainty that this was where she was supposed to be and what she was supposed to be doing, an unshakeable contentment with everything around her. Every child in the town who had had her as a teacher thought her one of the most wonderful people in the world, none of them left her classroom without getting some kind of sense that being compassionate, being gentle was the right way to be. For this reason, maybe others, the pride all the residents felt was perhaps a little stronger for her than it was for her husband.

Sure, Alex was pleasant whenever he was run into at the store or at the library or on one of his long walks, the guy could talk for hours. But there would always be something…distracted about him. Like he was too aware of everything he did and said, like he was trying to follow a long and complicated script from memory but only at times. At other times, it was the complete opposite, he was so vague it was a little disconcerting. There seemed to be nothing behind is eyes, or at least something buried so deep it looked like nothing.

Things were different when he was seen with Eliza or with the rest of their family, as he was ninety-nine per cent of the time. Then he was just like any other devoted father or husband, often leaving conversations half-finished when one of his little ones dragged him away to join in their game or not looking like he saw much beyond his adored wife, more often than not resting her head on his shoulder, her arm wound around his waist.

He was still a fond figure, a treasured fixture of their place by the sea. But, even at his best, most  _ human  _ moments, Alexander Hamilton was considered an ‘odd one’.

One of the things most discussed, most poured over, most satisfyingly eyebrow raising, was just how many children Alex and Eliza were planning on having, whether they were going to keep going until they could stage their own family production of the Sound of Music or until the foundations of the lopsided cottage they somehow continued to make work for a family so large actually gave way. It was almost like the tides or the return of the swallows, with a regularity not too stringent to be called clockwork but with a loose pace and beat of its own, Eliza would turn up at the town’s little grocery store or the crafts shop to get more wool or the bookshop she and Alex and their children loved, in a dress more shapeless than usual or jeans clearly borrowed from her husband; soft, forgiving shoes even if the near constant rain had left the ground outside more in common with a swamp than anything else, a cardigan so careworn with holes in the sleeves and under the arms but was clearly a treasured item that had its flaws forgiven when great comfort was needed. There’d be no change in her shape, not yet, the evidence would be in the way she carried herself, the knowing light in her eyes like the Mona Lisa, like she had a secret she wasn’t sharing with anyone else, the way a soft, indulgent smile seemed to be the default setting of her face. Or else, her shopping cart full of nothing but peaches, cookie dough that was clearly never going to see the inside of an oven and cans of whipped cream gave the game away fairly quickly. If Alex was with her, further proof would be found in the way he kept a tight perimeter around her, never willingly moving more than arms length away from her, stealing more kisses and gentle touches of her hair than ever before. 

Everyone in the village had learned to recognise the signs, like the well-recognised ciphers of a coming winter; the leaves shrivelling and losing their footing in the way Eliza started piling it on top of her head as it thickened, the first careless spill of frost in the shadows under her eyes. But of course not a word was said until the bump was actually visible and Alex was going around what always seemed like every single individual with a pair of eyes in a five mile radius, excitedly showing them the sonogram. Then it was weeks of watching Eliza blossom and flourish, a living Demeter in chord dungarees and hiking boots, listening to the existing Hamilton children chatter excitedly about their new sibling and draw pictures for them in the corner of the tea house when they came along with Alex for his early afternoon caffeine hook up, seeing Alex’s smile grow surer and more easily seen.

And then there would be _ another _ name to remember.

Oh, they were just grouching. They were just grumbling in the same way they did every time it rained and every time the sun shone with too much heat and every time there were leaves or snow on the ground, the way they just  _ did. _

All the little Hamilton’s were fondly thought of by pretty much everyone in the village. Though it had to be said they were a little like dryads, appearing out of nowhere, going about their own little businesses, following their own unseen paths and then dematerialising just as quickly. Those who caught glimpses of them most often learned where the scattered, aimless threads of their daily wanderings tended to converge and overlap and tangle into knots of time. It was possible to catch them, sometimes, if the wind was in the right direction and you knew the tricks.

For example, Jamie could usually be found sat in the smallest table, right over in the corner of the tea house, at the chair with no cushion and a leg that wobbled but it was always the one he chose, even when Rosie casually mentioned that she could keep one of the plush, obese couches over under the specials board free for him if he liked? Jamie always politely shook his head, turned back to the homework or the Lego model or the sheet music or the book that was occupying him that day in silence. Though, occasionally, on the days he was apparently feeling especially brave, he would go up to the glass counter that held the cakes and pies and other pastry gems Rosie’s girlfriend, Jessie, made so lovingly, press his wondering eyes to the cool surface and quietly ask what different ingredients she’d used, courteously suggesting alterations or changes with the respect of a fellow savant. Jessie adored him, Rosie guarded him and no one was surprised when, the Saturday after his sixteenth birthday, after his usual customary glass of iced tea, he slipped on an apron that seemed to fit him perfectly, picked up a notepad and tucked a blunted pencil behind his ear and got to work.

However, if it was Will you wanted to find, the quiet, contemplative young boy who followed on Johnny’s heels and whose hair was always in his eyes, getting caught in the joints of his glasses, then the place to try was the small plaza outside of the town hall. He would habitually brave the rain with his usual easy indifference to anything but his handful of interests, somehow manoeuvring his awkward angles and jutting joints into spectacular breakneck tricks on his battered skateboard off the architecture there. Little Will was rarely seen without pastel coloured band aids laddering his skinny legs, usually with motivational slogans written on them by his older sister, and he seemed to wear them like badges of honour.  Either he was risking life and limb on the village’s only and slightly regretted flirtation with the sweeping curves and flowing lines of eighties design, flirting with a trip to the ER on a skateboard with mismatched wheels that looked like it should have collapsed into splinters a long time ago or, if it was Saturday (or his mother was anywhere near) he would be volunteering at the tiny animal shelter on the outskirts of town. That was his true second home, where a light seemed to come on in his eyes and he seemed able to stand a little bit straighter than usual, working some kind of magic through his fingertips to soothe half feral cats who hissed and spat at everyone else or nervous puppies who only freed their tail from between their legs and stilled their frightened shaking for him. He never asked for any pay, any kind of compensation for what he did. All Will seemed to want in the whole entire world was for no one to touch his skateboard and to see the animals. That was all he asked for.

It was a surprise to everyone in the village, no one more so than Eliza and Alex when, out of the blue, almost without thinking, like it had crept up on them, their seventh child turned out to be a little girl. They’d all hear the story of how an exhausted Eliza refused to believe Alex when he tearfully informed her that the tiny little squalling baby in his arms, loudly experiencing her very first sensation of the outside world- the gentle, protective touch of her father’s hands, was a girl. Even she couldn’t believe that they’d finally broken their streak of Y chromosomes. She was even more shocked, so much so that, by all accounts, she burst into fresh tears, when Alex grinned through his own calm weeping to tell her than she was going to be named after the greatest and most wonderful woman he knew. Her mother.

Of course, it would be as scandalous as a grandparent having a favourite grandchild for anyone in the village to love one Hamilton child more than the others but, if pushed, if really, really pushed, there was a good chance many of them would say little Liza. Not only because she was an angelic thing, all sunset coloured skin and bouncing black ringlets and her mother’s beaming smile as well as her name. Also, more for the entertainment factor, for how many times they’d seen the toddler waddling down the main street at a surprisingly fast pace, usually in some state of undress or wearing more clothes than was strictly typical or perhaps holding the glasses her Pops ended up getting quite reliant on later on in his life, with Alex himself a few paces back, trying desperately to catch up with her. Alex was known for being fast, quick on his feet, but somehow his daughter was always faster.

The villagers felt themselves off the hook once Liza started preschool, surely seven was more than enough? Privately, they’d all thought that maybe five or even six had been enough but each to their own.

But no, apparently, Alex and Eliza wanted to go for the even number.

Though, along with the fact that Mrs Adam’s Christmas decorations were a little flashy this year and that the library fees were getting a little extortionate, weren’t they, it was a well-established fact in that corner of the coastline that Rachel Hamilton was an absolute treasure. Smiling so prettily with such a genuine, innocent warmth, eyes that looked older and seemed to hold so many more depths than a two-year-old would be capable of, usually seen lovingly following her mother, always stooping to lightly brush any flowers she past. Not pick them, never pick them, she’d hate to keep them for herself. Just to touch them with the curious pads of her fingertips, a greeting and a question and maybe even an answer in one little gesture.

Nearly a year after Rachel arrived, Eliza got the sense that there were a lot of eyes on her, a lot of loaded questions, a lot of glances. They only stopped after she casually mentioned to the florist that she and Alex had made the decision that their family was the size it had always meant to be. She didn’t use the phrase, not in front of the sweet old gentleman she chatted about gardenias and gypsophila with, but in her heart, she felt it; their pod was complete.

The moment the words were out and into the collective ears of the village, Alex looked up from his desk sharply, frowning, wondering if he’d just imagined that distant sigh of relief that sounded as if it came from a hundred mouths at once?

Though change was rarely a good thing, in the eyes of such granite carved, salt burned people. What would they talk about now, that they’d lost the swelling population of the brightly coloured, lopsided cottage growing down by the shoreline? Even a family with a goddess for a mother, an alien for a father and dryads for children could only provide so much material. But it was sweet to see, after all, to see a collection of people so loved and loving, protected and protecting, working in their own strange little ways and yet in perfect harmony with each other’s. It was just that they’d miss the excitement they brought, that’s all.

After everything that happened next, in the months that followed, the  _ excitement  _ that came crashing down on the Hamilton family, the townspeople would feel a pang of guilt. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex discovers another world

Eliza wasn’t quite sure what made her pause.

It wasn’t exactly the first time this has happened. Although it all took place outside their bubble, the walls of their sanctuary down by the sea, of course some tendrils of the world outside got through. His writing felt a little like Alex was throwing stones out across the sea from where he stood safe at shore. It was a long way away, he threw as hard as he could, as much as his wiry muscles would allow, but the ripples would always find their way back, even if in tiny increments.

Increments like the not-as-occasional-as-Eliza-would-like phone line arguments with Jefferson, the advance cheques in the mail, the early release copies of his books, sometimes there’d be a review or a reference to it in the New York papers Eliza still read over breakfast because she liked to observe the busyness of her old life from a distance, to read it like a book than to have to live it. To be the observer rather than caught in it all.

And then there were these. Invitations on extravagantly stiff and creamy paper like doves come to lavishly roost on their doormat, to galas and festivals and parties that were apparently the kind of thing that postmodern William Blake’s went to. But not her Alex; so far, they’d all winged their way to the trash can without a moment’s thought or else Alex used them to fold origami cranes and frogs and foxes to amuse the little girls. The maximum attention that had ever been given to them was an amused glance across the room from Alex to Eliza, a ‘what are they thinking’ kind of look, bewilderment at how other people lived their lives. It was like an interesting scrap of bar trivia about an animal so exotic they couldn’t even begin to imagine what they might look like.

This one had shimmering golden writing on it, Eliza observed, turning it over in her hand, catching glimpses of her own face in the mirrored surface. Maybe that was what made her stop, that sight of a section of herself, an eye, the corner of her lip, one slightly flared nostril, carved from gold like a relic from an ancient time. It gave her a little start and suddenly she wasn’t walking to the kitchen to throw out the junk mail and make herself a cup of tea, stopping to ask AJ and Angie if they could use one too. She was standing stock still in the middle of the living room, her spare hand trailing idly down to rest on top of little Rachel’s head as she clung to her mama’s legs, apparently, her favourite place to be. Her youngest didn’t seem to mind the delay at all, just clutching at Eliza’s flowing chiffon skirt and cooing softly.  

Eliza thought for a long moment, her chest rising and falling, blinking slowly. It was an odd feeling, to realise that even though it was so subtle as to be unrecognisable, thoughts did come from somewhere, they were a conscious acquisition and when they appeared from nowhere, it was a jolt. 

Eventually, Rachel did become a little confused, her mama was rarely stationary, unoccupied, for any extended period of time. She tugged on one of Eliza’s fingers, burbling and chattering in that way toddlers who hadn’t yet mastered words expressed themselves.

Eliza shook herself, refocusing, looking down at her youngest, “Sorry, my little honey-bee.”

Rachel cooed her forgiveness, instantly becoming more preoccupied with plucking at the bow in her thick dark hair than anything else.

Eliza frowned a little, a tiny crease forming in the gap between her eyebrows, her eyes seeing something other than what was actually in front of them.

“Rachel?” she murmured, catching her baby girl’s attention, wide, silver dollar eyes turning up to blink at her, “I might be crazy.”

Rachel gave an unconcerned little hoot, resting her head against Eliza’s knee.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”

Rachel was more than happy to be bundled up in her favourite blanket (this one embroidered with neat geometric patterns of bumblebees; Alex always observed with bemusement and awe how Eliza somehow knew exactly what animal would best personify their new baby, even while they were still growing inside her) and go down for her nap. Eliza kept the invitation carefully tucked inside her shirt as she made her way down the corridor, gently stroking the frames of the photos that stood sentinel in careful gradations along the walls. Her and Alex on the beach, his head in her lap, grinning up at her adoringly. Philip back when he was just a tiny little thing, he wouldn’t even come up to his own shins now, clutching his giraffe and beaming as brightly as the sun. Alex and AJ playing chess in warm morning sunlight. Eliza and her daughters, grinning in the kitchen. Will and Johnny playing pirates in an old orange crate down on the sand.

And then all of them, every Hamilton, piled on the sofas in the living room. Like the room around them all, full of mismatched pieces and clashing patterns and personalities that didn’t have all the matching edges and yet somehow, they worked, they made something brilliant.

Eliza lingered over that one the longest.

She found Alex in Angie’s bedroom, unsurprising because most of the family’s books were in the wall to wall cases surrounding her bed. But her husband seemed to have a distraction, given the way she found him with a slack jaw and bright, wide eyes, looking worryingly transfixed as he gazed at Angie’s beloved goldfish, swimming in contented figure eights through her tank.

Eliza’s eyebrows shot up at the sight of Alex’s sharpened teeth winking from under his parted lips, how he leaned forward gradually towards the surface of the water.

“Don’t you dare!”

“I wasn’t, I wasn’t!” Alex fell back, rubbing at his eyes, “I didn’t even touch the little guy!”

Eliza tried to hide her smile, lightly slapping his arm, “Angie will  _ never  _ forgive you, you monster!”

“Well, I told her to put a lid on the damn thing,” he grumbled, folding his arms defensively.

She rolled her eyes and kissed his cheek, unshaved and a little rough, “You’ll be fine. Come on, if you’re hungry, I’ll make you something.”

“It’s not that so much,” he sighed, pushing his hand through his hair. The greys nestled there were becoming more and more pronounced; it seemed that every single morning when she reached over and ran her fingers through his bedhead, wanting to feel the softness of it, untangle the tangles, feel it under her fingertips after sleep kept them apart, it would shimmer with more and more silver. Eliza liked it a lot. She’d always thought of him as something precious, a dear and prized object, silver would do just fine.

Though she couldn’t stop the jolt that would run through her veins and settle in the fillings of her teeth in the first nanosecond of seeing it, when she would realise how much it looked like his seal skin.

Eliza gave a small sigh and let her hands rest on the tops of his arms, “Let me make you food, okay? Because I’m about to suggest something that you really aren’t going to like.”

Alex tilted his head to one side, as if to listen better, though the wariness came back, the tense hold to his frame that had been there when he was watching the fish.

“Suggest away,” he maintained an air of unconcern pretty convincingly. He’d gotten much better at packaging and parcelling his emotions, rather than just blurting out whatever he felt.

Eliza gave him a little smile and pulled the invitation from down the front of her shirt (these jeans frustratingly didn’t have any pockets, she’d been ranting to Jamie about it over breakfast that morning), “Ta da?”

Alex frowned in confusion as he took it, realising what it was, “Oh. What’s it for this time?”

“You,” Eliza said simply, with what she hoped appeared as a nonchalant shrug.

Alex lifted an eyebrow, peering at the loopy, golden writing like it would hold the answer, “Little old me?”

“It’s in your honour,” Eliza explained, rubbing his shoulder gently, “Sometimes humans throw big parties for a person when they’ve done something amazing. And in this case, the person is you. And the something amazing is your poetry.”

This must have been an idea of Jefferson’s and it surprised Eliza. She was certain he’d portray it outwardly and even in his own mind as a pure and plain publicity stunt but there was genuine respect for Alex as a client underneath all this, not every writer got a gala thrown for them at one of the most prestigious venues in New York city.

Alex absorbed this, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Eliza hoped his teeth had retracted or he’d make himself bleed.

“And…you want to go?” he said slowly.

Eliza took a deep breath and nodded, “Yes. I think it would be a good idea.”

Alex rocked on his heels, suddenly looking an awful lot younger than his forty-five years, shrinking right down to a teenager facing a big soccer game or a solo in the play, if he’d ever had the chance to be in such an innocent situation.

“Why do you think it would be a good idea?”

Eliza nodded, glad she could explain it to him, “I feel like you deserve it? You deserve not to just be…outside of it all. Your writings helped so many people and you should be thanked for that.”

Alex went immediately rose pink, heat rising in his cheeks. It was a little gratifying to see that after so many years of marriage, Eliza could still make him blush.

“And…” she continued, trying to make her thoughts contort and stretch themselves into words, which felt a little like asking something to get in a box that was way too small, “We’ve never gone away together, that could be really fun. Get all dressed up, drink fancy cocktails, play at that life for a while…and then have a hotel room all to ourselves at the end of it?”

She couldn’t help sneaking that in and it worked, Alex’s eyes brightened and his ears picked up almost automatically.

Smiling coyly, she let her hands drift down to take his, winding their fingers into interlocking patterns, like black and white art deco cells forming one beautiful blanket.

“Also? I remember how much you used to love finding new human stuff, how much you loved learning…” she blushed a little herself, “And I worry sometimes you don’t get enough of that out here. We’re kind of isolated and, y’know, we did the whole kids thing before you really got to see anything beyond this corner of the shoreline. There’s so much world out there, Alex. I’d hate to deprive it of meeting you.” She nudged him with her chest playfully, eyes softened with love.

“Aw, come on,” Alex laughed, ducking his head and feigning perhaps more embarrassment than he actually felt, “I probably wouldn’t even look that good in a tuxedo…”

“Um, you would,” Eliza said with confidence, her eyebrows raising, “Why do you think I specified the bit about the hotel room?”

Alex laughed in the gravelly way he did when he was flustered, stroking his thumbs across her palms, “I mean…the kids…”

“I was thinking Philip and Theo could be trusted to watch them for a night or two? Well…Theo can,” Eliza chuckled.

Alex rolled his eyes, it was true that if Philip was at the helm, the children would all be eating ice cream for breakfast and going to bed at midnight for the price of some puppy dog eyes. But his co-pilot Theo would keep things in check.

He adored his children more than any words could ever express, even words that apparently got lavish parties thrown for them, and he could already sense that three days away from them would damn near kill him. But the idea of having Eliza all to himself, satisfying the curiosity of what kind of world she’d come from before she met him, letting the world see them as a unit, as a pair…

“I’ll have an answer for you by bedtime,” he decided, nodding.

Eliza beamed, leaning up and kissing his cheek again, that was all she wanted.

“Thank you, honey…now come on, I wasn’t kidding about the food.”

Alex smiled as she tugged on his hands, leading him out of the room, “I’m really not that hungry?”

“Yeah, but I’m not leaving you alone with that fish.”

“Oh come on, I wasn’t gonna touch him…”

-

Alex had a tried and tested method for making difficult decisions. He’d had more than a few come and try and trip him up so this system for untangling the knots that his frantic mind conjured out of sheer spite for his wellbeing, apparently, had as much tinkering and refinement poured into it as his  _ asopao  _ recipe did.

He would take a blanket and a flask of the coffee he made himself in complete defiance of the instructions on the side of the coffee machine, the one that had the colour and consistency of motor oil. He’d go and lie on his back at the shoreline, stare up at the sky that was almost indistinguishable from the sea itself, as if the two had infectious temperaments. They would both be either still and blue and contemplative or both grey and broken with angry foams or either cloud or spray. Alex loved to see it, to watch it all shift and move and run on without concern or complaint, to let himself feel small and insignificant in an oddly soothing way. His mind would scratch away at the problem and have an answer for him by the time rain was threatening and he was down to drinking dregs.

It had never failed him, not with deciding to broach the subject of marriage with Eliza, not with working through his anxieties about becoming a father, not with anything.

But now, as he stood in the middle of a hotel room that smelt so strongly of perfumed herbs and plants that it was a little dizzying to his nose, utterly naked and confronting the tuxedo laid out on the vast white expanse of the bed like someone facing a tightly coiled snake, Alex couldn’t help but worry that his method had failed for the first time. Because now, going to this party really didn’t seem like a good idea and he was zealously forgetting his yes.

“Come on,” he grunted, anxiously running his hands through his just washed hair, “You’re forty-five and you’ve been a human for way longer that you’ve been a seal. You’ve survived hurricanes and fishing boats and starvation for years, you can do one stupid party. You can  _ put on a bow tie!” _

He was still no closer to being clothed when Eliza returned, almost ten minutes later, back from visiting her sisters in the room just a few doors down. When they’d heard their Eliza and their brother in law were coming to town, of course they’d joined in.

Of course, she looked so striking, Alex couldn’t look at her for more than five minutes without his legs trembling. Where on earth Peggy had produced such a dress from, he had no idea, it looked as if it had been from the night sky itself. He’d never seen such a deep, liquid black anywhere else, the kind he could fall into if he leaned too far forward, and he’d never seen it tamed and twisted so elegantly, into a long dress that cinched tightly at Eliza’s waist and settled so naturally over her collarbones, exposing power soft skin and delicately angled bones. It was like she’d simply asked a shadow nicely if it would be her dress for the evening and it had graciously obeyed. With her hair swept up in an ineffable elegant messiness

“You look beautiful,” Alex rasped, hating how that word came nowhere near the mark for describing how she looked to him; what kind of poet was he?

But Eliza beamed radiantly, allowing the door to shut behind her and moving closer to him, winding herself around one of the beams of the four-poster bed.

“Well, you look beautiful too,” she smiled, her eyes drifting over him appreciatively, “Though I think the gala hall might want you to cover up just a little more?”

“I supposed so,” Alex rolled his eyes, “I was just going to take care of that…”

Eliza leaned forward, making the most of the view while she still had it, “Need some help?”

Alex tried a dismissive scoff, “Ah, no, I’m not our five-year-old, I can dress myself.”

Eliza shrugged simply, settling herself at the end of the bed to watch.

Inside of five minutes, Alex’s pride had crumbled and Eliza was disentangling him from his own bow tie after it had apparently come to life and tried to strangle him.

“You’re nervous,” Eliza observed plainly, her hands not retreating when the job was done, staying and gently running along his now neatly shaved jaw.

Alex didn’t offer an answer any more than glancing at his reflection in the mirror, his face falling at what he saw. Peggy had chosen him clothes too, correctly anticipating that his usual sweaters with holes at the join of the sleeves and jeans with the tears in the knees would be unsuitable for such a fancy party. And there was no denying that she had exercised as impeccable a taste as she had with Eliza. It was the subject that was wrong.

He was wrong.

The material was bright, bordering on the electric blue, Alex had loved running his fingers across it when it had laid on the bed as its own entity, effortlessly tailored and stylish and bold. But now it was on him, having to sit alongside his harsh angles and sharp posture and the shadows under his eyes, it just all fell apart. He looked like someone wearing a costume to fulfil some drunken forfeit and hating every minute of it. He looked like what he was, Alex thought as his heart sunk right down to the bottom of the uncomfortable dress shoes he’d somehow managed to scuff already, he looked like an imposter. An alien.

“Maybe a little,” he confessed in a low, dry sigh that broke Eliza’s heart.

But the problem, though supernatural, was simple and it had an equally simple solution.

Eliza moved forward and wrapped her arms around Alex’s waist, pulling him close to her, her head finding the curve of his collarbone that always seemed to have been built exactly for her head to rest there.

Suddenly, it was like a completely Martian piece of modern art had been turned the ten degrees necessary to make it clear as anything, to make the layers of ecstasy and anguish and fury woven into it dance the right steps and finally make sense. Alex’s jaw slackened at the hinges and his eyes opened in wonder, just as Eliza’s smile of relief and knowing grew and her hold on him tightened.

It was only when they were together that everything fell into place. Here, in their joint reflection, with their linked hands and tight embrace, the exact same look in their eyes that showed the miles they’d walked together. And Alex looked like he belonged; he could stand a little straighter and hold his chin a little higher. He didn’t look any more human, not really, his uncanniness was as deeply ingrained as coal silt. The only difference was, with Eliza’s hand in his, it mattered less.  

Eliza kissed his temple, his hand trailing down his chest to rest over where she knew without needing to see that the little silver sailboat lay under the material of the black shirt. The boat that had carried them through an awful lot.

“Ready to go?” she inquired, her tone light and encouraging, painted lips turning up in a fond smile. Casual and airy, like they did this all the time, like this was just a game.

He could play a game.

“Can’t be late to my own party, can I?” Alex grinned, “I’m guessing that’s bad form.”

“See?” Eliza shrugged, starting to pull him towards the door, “You’re already an expert.”

-

 

Being what he was, what he had been for such a long time, Alex’s sense of smell was much stronger than humans would be. So, the first thing he noticed, what made the most lasting impressing on him out of the five or so hours he spent in the impossibly grand hall with a rooftop garden his writing evidently warranted, was how it  _ smelled. _

The tart prickle of champagne at the back of his nostrils, the subtly ozone like buzz of the lights, more lights than even Alex himself had collected, lights with the filaments prominent and twisted into elaborate shapes that he envied hugely, left on a little too long as the night wore on, the mix of a hundred different perfumes and a rich carpet of spices and herbs from the tiny canapes that revolved around the room.

Somehow, even things that shouldn’t have a smell took on one in this alluringly strange environment. The chatter of the people around them, such elegantly dressed people in angles and curves and turns, who talked about things that made no sense but not in a frustrating way, in a way that made you want to search for more, their chatter had the savoury tang and viscosity of black olives. The music that filled the large space effortlessly was a rich, inebriating straddle of jazz and classical that smelled of red wine and had the same intoxicating effect. The fabrics that hung from the walls, the delicate curtains that lifted and danced drunk on the invading night air had the scent of time passing, slightly musty but nostalgic for times of louder music and wilder parties and more extravagant dresses.

That was only a small part of it, a fraction of what Alex’s sharpened senses were flooded with, but it was the easiest to focus on and process, the rest of it threatened to overwhelm him. It probably would have swept him away if he hadn’t had Eliza’s hand in his.

After ten minutes of panic, of his heart pounding so hard he could feel a pulsing at the back of his throat like it was trying to crawl out and make a break for it, he shifted his perception. It was much easier to observe it all as something out of a book. More than a few times, Alex had been so caught up in the threads of a story, whether it was one he was reading himself or one Eliza was reading to him while his head rested between her legs, that coming down from it and realising he was actually himself was something of a shock, like missing a step in the dark. This could be like that. Some part of his mind pretending he was in The Great Gatsby or Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and this was just removed enough for it not to drown in. Alex found he could even enjoy it a little, in an ironic, bemused sort of way.

With a glass of bourbon and soda in his hand, no different to the ones he drank at home on warm evenings except the tumbler was much fancier (namely, it wasn’t a chipped plastic cup with Garfield on the side), he could let Eliza, Angelica and Peggy guide him through the crowd, finding him interesting people to talk to and amusing conversations to tune in to. As the music swelled to match the beat of his footsteps on the polished floor, as he triumphed in a brief but smooth conversation with his father in law that couldn’t have been further from the stammerings and stutterings that were all he could manage the first time they met all those years ago, Alex became glad he’d said yes.

Part of it was just following Eliza’s lead. She was a freaking virtuoso at this stuff, Alex quickly realised. Apparently the fine and ethereal art of navigating the upper echelons of New York city was like riding a bike; even decades as far away from it as it was physically possible to be without falling off the edge of the United States couldn’t make you forget it. She effortlessly held herself like all the people around them, adopting that odd set to the skeleton that somehow silhouetted refinement and wealth and superlatives. She laughed like they did, in the manner of parrots’ vapid wittering, she made their kind of jokes that were oddly backhanded and clever, she suddenly reeled off the names of wines and playwrights and heiresses and forms of yoga like close personal friends. She hugged in that oddly removed kind of way and air kissed and slipped her arm through the crooks of those privileged enough to be close personal friends. The three of them moving together, Angelica, Eliza and Peggy, with such devastating skill, within the hour it was like they owned the room, the city, hell, the whole of the universe.

Alex was a little shaken at first, by this glimpse of who his wife may have turned into if she hadn’t tripped over him on that beach all those years ago, the life she might have lived. He couldn’t help but feel a little maudlin the more he had to drink, wondering if, had things gone differently, his Eliza would be hanging off the arm of some tall, imposing investment banker or lawyer or theatre director, wearing diamonds on her wrists and pearls around her neck and charcoal on her eyelids and a painless smile on her lips like all the other women here.

But then, every so often, when there was a lull in the conversation or during the chiming bells of laughter at the end of an anecdote, Eliza would throw Alex a look of amusement and spirit that was every inch his soulmate, the woman who’d rented movies with him in a crusade to keep the local video store in business, who would run outside in her nightie to gather handfuls of the first November snowfall and chuck it over him while he slept, who sang that They Might Be Giants song to their little babies and danced around the living room with them in her arms. Alex would smile back, his eyes shining in the low light of the many candles and soft bulbs, and his worries would be smoothed down like the amber sweet, even whisky he was drinking.

It was all just a game, Eliza was still his Eliza and Alex was still her Alex.

 

At some point in the evening, Alex found himself up in the rooftop garden, sitting in the cool embrace of the night, letting it and the delicate scent of the lilies around him soothe the alcohol blush in his cheeks and the buzzing in his head and his rapid, excited heartbeat. The stars weren’t visible, not with the clouds and fog that wrapped around this city like all the chatter and talk that went on in the vast forest of buildings had taken vapour form. It made Alex a little sad but the moon at least was visible, shining bright like a searchlight, like the reassuring hand of a lighthouse reaching out to remind him that he was still here, that he’d been found. The sight of the moon, swollen and full and proud, in the inky sky had always been a source of comfort for Alex. He had vague memories (all his memories from his time in the water were vague, especially as he aged, only random pictures and odd phrases could get through the sturdy gate between that world and this one) of sitting on a rock, the cool hardness of it pressing into his belly, slick and unyielding, looking up to the moon and getting a feeling a lot like the one he felt right now. Reassurance. Protection. Safety.

Alex was so engrossed in it, in his non-verbal conversation with the moon, that he was only aware of Eliza’s presence after she took a seat beside him on the edge of the flower bed and murmured fondly, “I wonder what the kids are doing.”

Alex turned to her, smiling, pulling her in so her head rested on his shoulder, “We’re three hours ahead, so…Rachel and Liza should be asleep. Will’s probably insisting he’s not tired but nodding off on the sofa anyway. Johnny’s probably reading that book on Ancient Greece he found the other day. Jamie’s probably practising guitar while the house is quiet. Angie, I guess, is sewing, she wanted to get that skirt finished before the weekend. Pip and Theo are probably watching a movie with AJ, something age inappropriate I bet.”

Eliza closed her eyes so she could better see the picture he painted with his words, chuckling, “Yeah. I think you’re pretty close to the mark there.”

Alex grinned in triumph, allowing himself that before he slipped back into his contemplative state, “I miss them.”

“Me too,” Eliza murmured, finding his hand and holding it tight, “But we’ll see them soon.”

He nodded, thinking fondly of how the kids would probably stay up to see them come home even though they’d told them not to, how they’d wait eagerly, watching TV but not really paying attention to it, instead listening for the click of the door or the crunch of car tires on gravel outside.

“Are you having fun?” Eliza asked hopefully, squeezing his hand.

“Yeah,” Alex laughed, “I actually am. You humans are weird but in a fun kind of way.”

Eliza giggled, elbowing him lightly, “You say that like you aren’t the king of weirdness.”

“And what would that make you, exactly?” Alex asked, bemused, his eyes glittering.

“Your proud queen,” she shrugged loftily, kissing his cheek, letting her lips linger against his warm skin a beat longer than she really needed to.

When she broke away, she murmured, “I think I’m ready to split now, though. You coming? I believe certain promises were made regarding the vast expanse of that hotel bed?”

Alex’s cheeks warmed pleasingly at that, his grin turning a little crooked but he gave a little shake of his head, “Not just yet. There’s something I want to do first.”

Eliza tilted her head quizzically, “Oh?”

He got up, stretching until his bones clicked then turned to her, stretching his palm out in a gentle invitation, in perfect synchrony with a shift in the muted music they could hear drifting up from the party below them.

“Can I have this dance?”

 

No one really  _ danced  _ at parties like this, the music was more for decoration, like the way the antique bulbs and tall, rose scented candles weren’t really for giving off light. So, it caused a bit of a stir, a ripple of interest when Eliza and Alex took to the dancefloor in the middle of the room and delightedly began to swim through the soulful, elegantly modern take on a waltz that was currently playing. But, after a few moments, the faux pas was forgiven as the people watching became drawn into the couple’s movements, the way they twirled and span across the floor, keeping close to each other even as it interfered with the steps, just because they didn’t want to be more than an inch apart.

It was…sweet. It was genuine. It was charming.

And besides, it was Mr Hamilton’s party, after all.

Neither of the two dancers cared a jot for the murmurs around them. All Alex could see was the way the light played across Eliza’s face and collarbone, the shadows mixing in with her dress, melting and shaping until it was as if she was wearing them all, part of them. All Eliza could see was how Alex’s muscles rippled and flowed under the material of his suit, so much activity going on for him to move so effortlessly and casually through the music. She’d never imagined he’d be such a good dancer. But, she supposed, wasn’t it just a lot like swimming?

They danced their way through four whole songs, though the passage of time seemed to mean nothing to them and there was a polite, jovial smattering of applause, mostly lead by Angelica and Peggy, once they’d finished, though neither of them heard it because they were much more occupied by their lips pressed together.

Thomas Jefferson had been more than a little apprehensive of meeting his most profitable and yet most volatile client face to face. If their phone conversations were a template, they might be facing some bad publicity in tomorrow’s papers which would, in fairness, probably lift sales but if the price was a black eye, he wasn’t sure he wanted to pay it.

So, he was shocked into silence when his only interaction of the night with the elusive Alexander Hamilton was right at the end of the night, when the wiry, bright eyed man came up to him, gripped his hand and shook it affectionately, thanking him sincerely for such a great night before disappearing out of the door with his wife on his arm.

“Writers,” Thomas muttered in vague disbelief, shaking his head.

 

Alex couldn’t deny that that dress looked absolutely beautiful on his Eliza but he had to admit, he rather thought it looked even more gorgeous when it was pooled on the hotel room floor around her feet in a blue-black puddle, leaving his wife in just the equally black but infinitely more translucent underwear she’d worn for the occasion. He could only stand half a minute of gazing at her before he pounced, taking her hands and tumbling her down with him onto the bed.

No tricks or games or artifices, nothing but each other, their hot breath against each other’s skin and each other’s names gasped into open mouths and eager fingers stroking hair and weaving their way down to the joining of legs. That was all they needed, something real and intimate and open and hot, something that didn’t wait and didn’t hold back. So, Eliza began grinding against Alex before he’d even had chance to take his trousers off, making him hiss and moan and whine wantonly, begging her in a stammering voice to let him undress, he needed to be in her, he needed it so bad. And Alex fumbled a little with his own belt as he slid her panties down her legs and tossed them over his shoulder, parting her thighs so he could move his own hips between them, a spark running between their bodies as soon as they came within an inch, making them both gasp brokenly. But it was only sweeter for that, for the adolescent craving that put them both in mind of their first time together, the breath misting on the car windows and cracked leather seat groaning under Eliza’s back and needy rutting over jeans. Now, just shy of thirty years later, it only made the moment Alex finally got himself free and slid his full, not inconsiderate length into Eliza more of a delicious shock to think of that first, desperately sweet night.

Eliza moved for him like a ballet dancer, her legs stretching and writhing elegantly, her back arching almost gracefully, breath coming in measured, climbing pants as she wrapped herself around him and whispered in his ear, “Please…”

The platitude was unnecessary, Alex was only holding himself until he was sure she was ready and open enough for him. At her breathless command, he launched into it gladly, hips drawing back and driving home at a relentless pace, using every scrap of strength he had to give. Delicate, low screams of delight were pulled from Eliza like gossamer ribbons, sometimes taking the form of his name, her nails drawing red, thin works of art across the sunset skin of his back. Alex was focused, absorbed, one hand gripping the back of her head, stroking the fine silk of her hair in time with his thrusts, feeling it shift from its elegant style into something wild and untamed under his touch, the other hand down between his own legs, fingers spread in a V around the root of himself so his knuckle met Eliza’s clit every time their hips crashed together, in a way that made her toes curl and her heart skip every other beat.

They both unconsciously pulled back and slowed the pace a few times, neither of them wanting this to be over too quickly, but it couldn’t last forever. After a while, Alex’s breathing was painfully ragged and he was pulsing and throbbing inside her, the stream of glorious filth from his lips shifting into shameless begging, pleading for her to come, come on his cock, finish with him. Eliza complied willingly, squirting hard, soaking his fingers and crashing into bliss, shocked into silence, in perfect beat with him as he clawed at the sheets and howled her name in his release.

Both of them were utterly dizzied by it all, coming back down with a vaguely painful clatter, having to find each other again in soft, tender kisses and caresses as they rolled onto their sides and embraced until their hearts were beating at a normal rate again and their heads stopped spinning.

In the hot, wet darkness, in the shallow pool of orange, flickering light of the world outside continuing in its busyness, completely unaware of the moment of unreality the two of them had made together, Alex whispered lazily into Eliza’s neck as they lay tangled together.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m really, really glad I came.”  

 

The next day Eliza planned full of museums and art galleries and bohemian combination coffee bars and bookstores, determined to show Alex the beating heart of culture hidden away inside the city she’d grown up in, the part that had really raised her and her sisters, rather than the skyscrapers and conference rooms. Eliza got up early and allowed herself a moment to be nostalgic, choosing the kind of clothes she would have worn back when she was a teenager both in love with and a little afraid of this city; deep purple chord dungarees, a bright collared shirt, bright jewellery.

She threw a fond look over her shoulder at Alex, murmuring in his sleep somewhere in a tangle of the duvet and his own limbs, close to waking but not quite yet. It made her smile even as she turned back to her own reflection. She admired the run of stretch marks up from her thighs and across her stomach, the years reflecting in her eyes, the weight on her shoulders. Other times she saw them and her heart sank but now there was a fierce, defensive kind of pride in it all. This was her. This was who her own decisions had turned her into, these marks were left by her shaping of herself. All she’d ever wanted was to be able to walk a path she’d picked for herself, rather than one that had been chosen for her back before she’d even taken her first breath. Alex had given her the chance to do that and whatever marks it left her with physically, bruises and scars and shadows, she would love them dearly.

“Mornin’ baby,” Alex’s sleep heavy croak came from behind her and she spun to see him poking his head out from the bottom end of the blanket at an odd angle, somehow having turned himself right around and upside down.

She laughed merrily, tilting her head so she was at a level with him, “Morning, dork.”

Alex feigned indignance, scrambling until he was kneeling, the blanket wrapped around him like some elaborate coat, reaching for her. She wasted no time in bouncing over and kissing him so hard he had to lean back a little and began to chuckle against her lips.

When she finally pulled away, there was a strange look in her husband’s eyes, “Hey…so I was thinking last night?”

“You were?” Eliza hummed, wandering over to extract some underwear from the suitcase.

“Yeah,” Alex sat back on his heels, watching her tenderly, “Weird question but…do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you never met me? If you’d stayed in that kind of world and I’d gone back to the sea?”

Eliza turned to him, wanting to meet his eyes as she gave him the answer that rose in her mind without a single moment’s hesitation.

“No,” she shook her head, her eyes warm and certain, “I don’t. Because nothing could be as good as the life I have now.”

 

Towards the end of her life, Eliza would think about that weekend she and Alex spent in New York a lot. It seemed to somehow neatly bookend the happy part of her life, the part before everything changed and everything she’d known crumbled to dust in her hands and the colour leeched out of her world. Like every other second, she studied those days and turned them over in her hands until she had blisters, looking for anything she could possibly have done to change what came after, scrabbling for any threads to pull and say  _ here. Here is where it all went wrong. _

But somehow, those days didn’t lose their lustre, their paint didn’t chip, they stayed as warm and bright as they had been when Eliza had lived them the first time around.

And for that, she would always be glad of them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Eliza reach the end

The boat itself had been Eliza’s idea. She wasn’t ever going to let herself forget that. That wound was never going to close.

Philip and Theo’s first year at a college halfway across the country had been difficult for all of them. Watching them first disappear into the crowd of people at the airport, waving over their shoulders, hands securely joined, until the brightly coloured shapes zigzagging across the busy concord swallowed them up, it had felt to Eliza like they were taking her heart with them in the tight clasp of Philip’s large, tan hand and Theo’s slim, delicate black one.

Little Liza and even littler Rachel had been, respectively, indignant and heartbroken. Every morning Rachel would wriggle free of her daddy’s arms as he carried her down to the kitchen, she would pad over to the older boys’ room and carefully count the still sleeping shapes, bursting into tears when she could only count two, when it hit her that her beloved older brother hadn’t snuck back home in the night. Liza would slam her fork against the table at breakfast and scowl, demanding to know why Philip was being such a ‘dork head’ and when he would come home. Will and Johnny quickly found, to their dismay, that their scrabble games weren’t half as fun without Theo to invent fanciful made up words to make them laugh and get into long winded arguments with Alex over whether they counted or not. Jamie couldn’t shake the habit of making far more banana cookies than the family could hope to eat without Philip and his seemingly bottomless stomach. Angie was a drooping flower without her brother to lift her spirits and pick her up on the days her legs felt too weak to stand on their own and even AJ, self-proclaimed heart of stone, far too aloof to ever admit to having any emotions deeper than a vague nihilism, paced restlessly every Friday evening, frantically refreshing the screen of his laptop, waiting for Philip’s skype call.

Alex, though, Alex was the worst. Eliza seized the opportunity to divert her attentions away from her own pain by focusing on her husband’s and she tried so, so hard but for those first few months, he was inconsolable. He slept restlessly, went on long meandering walks that often left him huffing and shaking, half in panic, when he wandered into a storm. He didn’t even write much, his desk no longer the refuge, far away from everything eating away at him in reality, that it used to be. And what scraps he did write were rambling and disjoined, all about having lost something precious and pieces missing and edges torn away, that got sent back with Jefferson’s looping handwriting in the margins asking if Alex could ‘lighten up a little?’.

Eliza had sighed and fretted over him, every time he would fail to muster up the strength to give anything more than a thin smile at one of Johnny’s jokes or AJ’s witticisms, to return Eliza’s kisses with the same fierceness she gave, to do anything but shake his head exhaustedly when she offered herself to him. She read books and websites that told her of seals’ distress when their pod was broken up, when pieces of their family unit wandered away, how it tore at them and drove them mad.

But her resolve to help the people she loved when they needed it most was steel, for Alex it was diamond.

It took days of suggestions and leaving books and websites open for him to stumble across but eventually, finally, she saw his eyes brighten and his frame pick up one morning as his eyes slid over the open laptop on the coffee table and something on the screen made them catch. He didn’t say anything, not right then, and Eliza didn’t do anything more than smile languidly as she returned to her newspaper and treat herself to a thrill of hope in her chest.

That’s all she’d felt, hope. In the days after that when Alex had gone into town and come back with an armful of scrap wood, drawing surprised glances as he walked home at just how much an apparently slight, wiry man could carry, when he started spending most of his free time out on the pier with nails between his teeth and a hammer pounding an industrial beat out across the beach, when the skeleton of his distraction began taking shape, Eliza only felt hope. A sense that things were getting better. So, certain that she knew what was best for her husband, that all he needed was a project to take his mind off missing their eldest son and by the time he was finished it would be June and Philip would be home and everything would be okay again. Since he was a tiny little thing with more hair than sense, Pip had harboured a daydream after seeing illustrations in his story book of the owl and the pussycat and making it come true, bringing it into reality, would fix Alex’s broken heart. She’d been so  _ sure. _

It made her feel sick, to think of that now. Sickened and nauseated by how stupid she’d been, wanting to push her hands through the leaden years separating who she was and who she’d been and shake her younger self in fury.

But Eliza could scream and cry and dig her nails in all she wanted but those years would stay concrete and impassable as they had for every other grieving person willing to give blood and flesh to turn the clock back and change things. All she could do now was watch the wrenching movie of herself moving through halcyon summer days so blindly, see the memories behind her eyelids of that boat taking shape, of her doing nothing to stop it, bringing Alex an umbrella in the pounding rain and a tin mug of hot coffee when the evenings slipped in under the horizon when she should have been taking the pieces of oak like the brittle bones of the earth and snapping them in her bare hands or else kicking it’s threatening carcass into the waves. That damned rowboat painted the same green as their fort because the tins of paint were still in the attic, a beautiful pea green boat just like in the book, brought into reality for their children to play on.

That  _ fucking  _ boat.

It even fell to Alex to voice the slightest concern, that first time they stood on the front doorstep of their house the morning after Philip and Theo came home, in the surprisingly intense morning light, like the sun itself sensed what little time was left and decided to throw everything it had into what precious days remained.

“Sure it’s safe?” he murmured, his voice cracking with exhaustion from driving to the airport at one in the morning to bring his son and the girl who may as well be his daughter at this point back home.

Eliza gave his hand a fond squeeze as it rested in her own, both of them held casually in the small of her back. Her warm brown eyes watched their children gambol and tumble like puppies turned loose from the barn, animated and lively with almost too many moving parts and smiling faces to follow though practise made perfect and Eliza could settle her eyes just right to see Angie dangling Rachel’s legs alongside her own off the edge of the little jetty, Philip weighted down with Will and Johnny, trying to keep his balance with the two of them flinging their arms around his neck, AJ sat in the boat, his hands gripping the hem of Liza’s pyjama shirt so she didn’t topple into the water with her eagerness to peer over the side, Jamie talking animatedly with Theo about all the different navigation books he’d read.

She knew how to keep them all in sight.

“We’ll make sure they wear lifejackets and they all know how to swim, they’ll never take it out without one of us there, never when the weather is bad and never past the bay,” she ran through the already established list in her head. 

Alex chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes still wary and sharply focused on their children, clearly watching a parade of potential disasters and boat related dilemmas pass by between him and them.

“They’re sensible,” Eliza sighed reassuringly, not liking where his brain was spiralling to, resting her head on his shoulder in the little nook of his collarbone, “I mean, they’re  _ our  _ babies.”

“That’s not very reassuring, little miss ‘lets climb up on the roof when my husband isn’t home to tell me I’m risking breaking my neck’,” Alex mumbles, not enough under his breath.

“There was a leak!” Eliza rolled her eyes, hiding a guilty and unrepentant smile, “I saved half your library from turning into a swamp!”

“I’d rather have my one and only with an un-severed spine,” Alex nudged her with his elbow, making her giggle, knowing exactly where she was most ticklish.

“Shut up,” Eliza squirmed, her smile breaking out like sunlight from behind clouds, like a lighthouse beam slicing shadows into fragments.

Alex was placated; the looks on his children’s’ faces, their excited chattering at the prospect of adventures and games out in the secluded little bay by their home, left his worries as nothing more than whispers in the back of his mind. Philip especially made the decision concrete when he wandered up from the jetty with a smile as wide and as achingly simple as it had been since he was small enough for Alex to hold him in one hand. No matter how big he got, how tall he grew or who he gave his heart to, that was always going to knock the wind out of his father’s chest with sheer gratitude for its existence.

“You actually built me a boat?” he laughed in disbelief, jerking his thumb over to the neatly painted black declaration on the prow of it, his own name in his mama’s delicate, effortlessly neat hand.

“Well yeah?” Alex shrugged with feigned nonchalance, like this was something he did all the time, like he’d spent his life randomly building rowboats for the sheer hell of it, “I needed something to do now I wasn’t stuck doing your homework for you and beating all the boss battles on your Gameboy you couldn’t get past every night.”

“You’re nuts, Pops,” Philip grinned, aiming a solid but friendly punch to his father’s forearm in the kind of very teenage boy, companionably violent gestures that Eliza would never understand no matter how many kids she raised.

“Hey,” Alex’s eyes softened a little, “I just wanted to make sure that I’ve always got a way to get to you, no matter what stupid corner of the world you end up in.”

Their eldest was clearly disarmed by the sudden sentimentality, spluttering in a way that made Eliza’s heart melt, blushing and giving them both a tight, sudden hug before bolting off back down the pier with hurried thanks left in his wake.

Alex chuckled fondly and pressed his front against Eliza’s back, winding his arms around her middle, burying his nose in her hair and it’s gentle morning scent, telling himself that he was just being paranoid. There was nothing to worry about. What could happen to them?

What could possibly threaten his family that he couldn’t guard them from?

-

The worst, most poisonous, most blistering thing about last times was that you never knew they were the last time until it was too late. Details couldn’t be grasped desperately; the little things would be stolen away by time and distance before it was even known that they were an extinct species. It just wasn’t fair.

Alex and Eliza’s last time was a lot like their first in a bitterly ironic way. Rushed and frantic without much planning or forethought, the sheer desire to just be together driving them into a single moment snatched up indulgently and impulsively. Like their love was nothing more than a chocolate eaten at midnight to try and bring on sleep.

That wasn’t how Eliza would have chosen it to be, not that she’d ever even briefly entertained the idea of her and Alex ever having a ‘last’ anything, let alone a last chance to make love, what business did thoughts like that have in her head, her idyllic life?

But no one asked her. No one gave her the opportunity, everything was just ripped from her without warning.

So, Eliza would take what she could get and remembered everything she could.

Rachel usually went to bed easily and with minimal fuss, so much so that Alex commented brightly how it only took them eight tries to finally have a baby that knew how to sleep. But tonight, she wasn’t having it. Like her father, she was a creature of habit and any upset to her balance left her drifting unhappily.

“I’m so sorry, baby girl, we’ll have to find him tomorrow,” Eliza murmured soothingly, cocooning her distressed little daughter in her blanket.

Rachel’s lower lip jutted out miserably, “No! Need Megs!”

“Oh, honey bee, I know,” Eliza brushed her thumb along the underside of her dark, weepy eyes, “But it’s so late, can you do without for just one night?”

The idea of going to bed, of facing hours and hours of darkness and dreams without her beloved cloth kitten, made Rachel slump unhappily but she was so tired, there was no fight left in her.

“I guess…”

“My brave little girl,” Eliza pressed a kiss to her forehead, wiping away the dark plum lipstick smudge it left, nearly perfectly matching the birthmark that blushed across her left eye and had always done since she was born, “I promise we’ll find Megs tomorrow. He won’t have wandered far, he’s your best friend.”

Rachel gave a little nod, clearly unconvinced but even her toddler stubbornness got sleepy by nine pm. She accepted her mama’s goodnight kiss and snuggled into her bed, looking so small in the vast expanse of the covers it made Eliza feel a little sad. The way the storm outside kept roaring and pacing, throwing an angry shoulder against their stretch of the coastline, wasn’t helping at all, throwing harsh patterns of muted light into the room like alien figures climbing the walls. AJ had joked in a slightly nervous way as he’d been halfway up the stairs to his own bed that clearly the sky wanted to welcome Philip and Theo back home with a bang. It didn’t seem like anyone was going to get much sleep tonight.

But if Eliza could change the weather to make her family happy, she’d have done it a long time ago. She could only stroke Rachel’s hair and murmur that everything was going to be okay, doing the same for Liza over in the other bed across the room, tense under her space patterned blankets and trying to pretend she wasn’t as scared as she really was.

“I love you both so much,” Eliza whispered as she closed the door, always wanting that to be the last thing any of her children heard before they drifted off to sleep.

She came back into the living room to be confronted with her husband’s legs sticking out from under the sofa.

“Um, you need some help?” she smiled bemusedly, noting how he was wearing odd socks.

“Huh? Oh, hey baby,” he grunted as he squirmed free, kneeling and brushing dust from the front of his shirt, “I was looking for Megs.”

Eliza’s eyes softened, reaching down and stroking his loose hair, “Don’t worry, honey, she got to sleep okay. I’m sure he’s just in the car or maybe we left him at the library, Eli will grab him for us.”

“I swear she had him when we went for a walk…” Alex murmured fretfully, unable to stand the cold, awkward knowledge that one of his children was unhappy, but he let Eliza pull him to his feet and thread her arms around him.

“We’ll find him,” Eliza pressed her lips along his jaw, more than aware that the storm would be setting his teeth on edge too, happy to divert and distract.

Alex began to smile, feeling her warm lips and the gentle tickle of her breath across his skin, his own hands moving to respond in kind, clasping across her tailbone so her hips are pressed against him just a little fraction more than they were but it was enough, “Sleepy?”

“Not so much,” Eliza shrugged, eyes darting up to his with that delightful crinkle in their corners she got when she was being playful, “You?”

“I could stand to stay up a few more hours,” Alex tilted his head, leaning in without another moment’s hesitation, their lips meeting like the natural movements of the tides.

They had to move quickly and quietly, their children asleep just upstairs but fortunately they were practised at this, at stealing moments together in the quiet pauses of their lives. Eliza found her shirt and her jeans on the floor almost without any prompting from either of them, Alex found his bare back against the couch cushions but didn’t remember losing his feet. All either of them were aware of was each other’s hands and mouths and the pounding of each other’s heartbeats pressed flush against each other, so close it was like there was only one. Eliza could have stayed upright, let his hands hold her at the hips, ridden him until he broke but she didn’t. She wrapped her arms around his neck, staying as close as she possibly could even when it limited her movement but neither of them could spare the effort to care. Everything went into the pulling of their tendons, the tightening of their fingers, the clenching of teeth, into heat and salt and sweat and low moans muffled against Eliza’s hair and Alex’s collarbone. Eliza begged him brokenly not to stop, to never stop, Alex just moaned her name deliriously like that was the only word he even cared to know and they finished hard and bright and in perfect beat with each other, shuddering and collapsing and finding themselves again in each other’s arms.

Eliza had no idea that this time would be their last. But maybe Alex did, in a vague kind of way.

Because as he stretched back lazily, smiling in perfect and blissful satisfaction while Eliza gathered her clothes, a strange look interrupted his admiring the firm muscles of her shoulders and gorgeous curves of her thighs.

Eliza caught it over her shoulder as she turned to make a wry comment, the words extinguishing as they met the cold air, replaced with a gentle whisper, “Alex? Are you okay?”

He blinked, almost startled by his own emotions, having the look of a man just waking up. Running a slightly uncertain hand through his hair, he just said what was pounding through his veins like it had replaced all his blood.

“I just love you. I really, really love you, Eliza,” Alex murmured, his words and their intention sure but his voice strangely weak.

She was more than a little thrown by it. Not that they never told each other that, they did all the time, at every opportunity. Eliza would murmur it sleepily whenever Alex set her morning tea in front of her, Alex would chuckle it in the moments Eliza padded up behind him and slid her hands over his eyes while he sat at his desk. It was like the simplicity of the words could be overcome with volume, like if they both said it enough they could come closer and closer to describing how they really felt.

But there was something different in Alex’s eyes here, in the way he looked at her as he mumbled the words. There was something that could almost be described as fear.

“I love you too,” Eliza answered, coming up and holding his face gently, forgetting her clothes in the sudden need to kiss him one more time.

It was just the storm, she told herself when she failed to lose herself in the familiar texture of his lips. Storms made him nervous, they always had and for good reason.

It was just the storm.

-

Eliza’s dreams that night were disjointed and panicked, emotions with no grounding, fear without cause, hammering hearts but the danger was always too far out of the corner of her eye to see. So she didn’t realise at first that those frightened voices, the thin, rattled cries weren’t just in her head.

“Mama! Pops!  _ Please wake up!” _

Eliza was half asleep, almost like her brain didn’t want to face what it would find when she really opened her eyes, trying to drag her back down under the surface like the silent voice that told her to look away in revulsion from open wounds and weeping sores. It was Alex who was bolt upright, eyes wide and body thrumming with tension, to face a sobbing, shivering Liza at the foot of their bed.

“Mija…”

“It’s Rachel! I told her not to go but she remembered where Megs was and he was out on the boat and she said the storm would scare him so she went to get him but I said don’t, I said no but she went and now and now- “

Alex was gone, nothing but his warmth left in the bed next to his wife and their daughter’s terrified tears.

“I told her no, I tried, I told her it was dangerous,” the little girl wailed, dissolving into hysterics.

It tore Eliza’s heart in two to stagger to her feet and run right past her and her panicked but she was a slave to the bile rising in her throat and her heartbeat so wild and sickeningly fast she could feel it behind her eyeballs, those few gasping words of Liza’s enough to send her spiralling.

Little Rachel. The storm was still howling outside, so fierce it shook Eliza’s bones and seemed to tip the hallway around her as she sprinted through it, throwing her, bucking her, until she couldn’t tell if she’d ever really woken up.

_ Please let me still be dreaming. _

 

The door was open, Alex far out in front of her, Eliza ran right into a wall of rain so cold and solid it stung her bare skin and had her half drowned in seconds. The night was thick and she could feel it in her throat when she tried to breathe, like it was alive and insidious and deliberately hiding what was going on from her, wanting her lost and panicking.

“ _ Alexander!”  _ she cried, feeling the wind pluck up her voice and carry it away like a finch in the claws of an eagle, “ _ Rachel!” _

She staggered down the beach, sharp stones hidden in the ice-cold sand cutting the soles of her feet, taking small spattered sacrifices of her blood as she fled, searching frantically and in complete vain as the darkness remained impenetrable. From muscle memory alone she found the beginning of the jetty, the creaking path out past the writhing shore, out closer to where she could vaguely sense Alex was, just by following the thread between their hearts as much as she could over the sound of the earth being torn open from the inside just as her chest was.

Eliza felt the floor drop out of her stomach as her eyes told her a truth she didn’t want to believe. The end of their cottage’s little pier had been torn away, leaving only four or five steps worth ending in a jagged, broken wound like snapped bones.

The boat was gone along with it. 

_ No. _

Only as a human did Alex really feel the cold. And he felt it now.

He couldn’t breathe, he could only fight to move forward, throwing himself against the raw force of nature, pushing aside everything that stood in his way. He could see it up ahead, even through the storm, like a beacon dragging him ceaselessly forward. Of course, it was hard not to see the green against the black. Or miss the terrified sobbing, somehow louder to Alex’s ears and heart than the screeching of the storm.

He  _ had  _ to keep going.

And then, somehow, he was there, his hand (with claws that bit into the rain soaked wood with a visceral splintering) gripping the edge of the boat with a sensation like trying to hold on to a handful of smoke as it spiralled through the air. Rachel’s screams shifted in pitch and tone as what looked to her like a monster from the deep coming to drag her down below the waves as tall as towering cliffs reached through the shadows, hauling itself over the edge of the boat.

But then there was a voice, a voice she knew, a voice she’d been begging and begging to hear ever since the boat had come loose and she’d been set loose and tossed across the bay as if between careless hands playing a cruel and vindictive game.

“R-Rachel, it’s okay, it’s m-me…I’ve got you, mija, y-you’re safe…”

And then the tension none of them had realised had been building, that had climbed unseen by them both, turning Alex’s reassurances into a lie, it finally broke. Both Alex and Rachel were blinded, deafened, felt pressure on all sides, lost all sense of direction, his grip on her hand was broken.

And something pierced his chest, sliding in between his ribs like a whisper in his heart though it had no words.

Just a solid, silent farewell.

The storm was gone but the one in Eliza’s heart only got worse. The whole world around her was grey, grey and flat like the textures were still loading in after the whole system had to reboot, but Eliza felt so red, so alarmingly red, it pulsed like the desperate, searching beam of a lighthouse. Some time ago, who knew how long, she’d sank to her knees, leaning forward like if she could just reach out far enough, she could bring her husband and daughter home safe. Blood still beaded at the soles of her feet, running down and dripping into the dark, slate grey waters but Eliza couldn’t have cared less.

In the eerie silence left after the end of the world, the only sound was Eliza’s whisper, her plea to whoever was listening.

“Please, please, please,  _ please…” _

“Mama!”

The cry was faint and pained but it was the sweetest sound Eliza had ever heard and she burst into wracking sobs as it found her through the nauseating peace. She jumped, shin deep in freezing cold water but not feeling it in the slightest, moving through it like it wasn’t even there as she sprinted over to the small, sodden shape scrambling its way out of the water like had the reluctance of tar to let it go free.

“Rachel, oh baby girl…” she sobbed as she pulled her daughter into her arms, needing to feel the fluttering heartbeat in her chest, needing to know she was really okay, “My baby…”

Rachel’s teeth were chattering so harshly she couldn’t really speak without risking biting the tip of her tongue off but she tried to grind out words with a lot of effort.

And of all the things her youngest girl, her little baby, could say after nearly losing her life, all she said was, “M’so…s-s-so sorry…s-sorry…”

“Oh,” Eliza’s heart turned to dust in her chest, “Oh Rachel, no, no. Please don’t be sorry.”

“B-but…Pops…”

Alex.

Where was he? The bay was still and silent so Eliza felt like she could see all the way to the end of the world. A world without her husband in it.

Philip was coming running up, so was AJ holding a terrified Liza, Angie in tears, Jamie shaking and trembling, the younger boys huddled together on the doorstep. Rachel was being moved from her arms, her eldest making firm, commanding instructions that masked his own fear, for blankets and his keys, they were going to the hospital. Eliza felt removed from it all, staying kneeling and trembling in the shallows, her eyes darting, heart pounding, staying mute and stoic to her children’s tears and questions.

“Just…just go with Pip,” she whispered, sounding like her vocal chords were made of marble, “I’ll bring…I’ll find your father. Just go.”

And then she was alone on the beach, Philip sensing it was best to listen and to take his siblings with him.

Though she felt as if she was alone in the entire world.

She moved up and down the beach for what felt like years, like she was in her own bubble of time, more of a character in a book, something old and with a desperately sad ending.

And there was a sense of it having been written into existence when she finally saw all the red, how could she have missed it? But that thought was for later as she pounded across the sand towards the growing stain on the shoreline, the shape that looked like driftwood until she got up close.

But no. No, that  _ was  _ wood.

Bisecting her husband’s body like a glitch in reality, like something that should never be, a jagged piece of pea green wood, dripping wet like a shard of the sea had solidified into a weapon and broken everything that made her happy just out of sheer spite. Eliza knew with a cold, bitter certainty that she could hope and pray all she wanted, this was a death sentence. Her Alex, her heart, was pinned like a butterfly to a board.

But Eliza was stubborn.

“It’s okay,” she choked, tears streaming down her face like rain as she collapsed by Alex, pulling his head into her lap, “It’s going to be okay, I’ll call the ambulance, we’ll get you fixed, just breathe for me…”

Alex’s brown eyes opened, the clouds of pain and dizziness in them like amber. He took a breath that sounded so painful it made Eliza sob out loud and more blood bubbled up from the wound.

“Betsey…” he rasped vaguely, a shaking hand reaching up for her face.

“Shh, shh,” Eliza murmured, trying to sound soothing even as her tears fell and splashed against his cheekbones, “It’s okay, don’t talk. You need your strength, just stay with me, baby.”

“Betsey, it’s not…there’s not…” he gasped, shaking his head.

“No!” Eliza interrupted him with a sharp cry that broke and left her crying so hard she couldn’t make a noise, bent over him like she could hide him from the fates and keep him here.

“There’s a way,” she cried, as soon as she found her breath, “There has to be a way, Alex, we fought off so much, I will not lose you to this! I will not, it’s not  _ fair!” _

Alex tried to swallow and it ended in a harsh fit of agonised coughing and a low groan, “Betsey, I’m sorry…even if…I’d still have to…”

Eliza latched onto that with fierce, white knuckled fists, “What? If what?”

Alex’s skin turned ashen and convulsions began running down his body but in amongst the raw moan of pain there was a word. A hope.

“ _ Skin.” _

Eliza didn’t remember running back to the cottage to get it, it was as if she’d left her consciousness back with her dying husband as she scrabbled through the trunk at the foot of the bed, flew down the stairs, across the beach with the hem of her nightdress flying about her thighs like she was the ghost, but there it was, she had it.

Even marred, even old, even with all the years it had lived writ across the surface, his pelt was still so beautiful. Eliza felt her throat close up.

She held it against her chest, at second glance, her Alex’s wounds were more visceral and she felt her stomach turn over at the sight of that blood, looking ebony in the pre-dawn light, like a horrible tarry glue was keeping that wretched spear in his ribs.

“This will heal you?” she gasped, hope painfully raw in her throat, “You’ll be okay?”

Alex gave a limp nod, the light nearly entirely gone from his eyes. The knowledge was there, undeniable, the change would be enough that the injury would be only just survivable in a way it would never be on land.

But, as these things often did, as life often gives, the hope came hand in hand with a price.

Eliza didn’t understand why her husband was shaking his head as she shut off all her emotions to jerk the stake from his body and the howl of agony that came with it and moved to sweep the seal skin around his shoulders, why he scrambled weakly away from it even as his lifeblood leeched into the hungry sand.

“No…B-Betsey, no…” he groaned.

“What?” Eliza nearly shrieked, “Alexander, for god’s sake!”

He coughed the bitter truth up along with a mouthful of blood.

“I c-couldn’t come back. I’d have to…to go.”

Eliza didn’t hear what he’d said at first. It didn’t sink in, it was just another breeze of sea air moving past her ear. Because god damn it, after everything that had happened, surely that couldn’t be true.

But Alex kept talking in that wheezing, hurt rasp, talking about how the piece he’d cut for Philip, he’d damaged it, the change was only one way now, it would have to be permanent, there was no way out…

“No,” Eliza began to murmur, “No, no, no, no…”

“I’d r-rather die, Betsey,” Alex whispered through his tears of agony, his palm pressed to his chest, “I’d rather die than leave you all. Please…I w-won’t…”

“You will.”

Eliza somehow made her voice certain, her words a command and it shocked them both.

“You will go, Alex,” she spoke loud enough to be heard over the surf, even as her heart broke in ways it would never heal from, “I won’t let you die. I need you alive. And if it means I can’t have you, then…”

She couldn’t finish the sentence but her eyes said it all.

And Alex’s held his answer, his mouth opening to process, wasting precious time with arguing. Of course, he was Alexander Hamilton after all…

“You gave your skin to me the day you married me. It is mine and I decide what you do with it,” Eliza spoke in a voice as tired and sad and grieved as a voice could be. But it was sure.

“I need to know you’re alive somewhere, Alexander. Even if it can’t be by my side. I need the other half of my heart to be out there.”

Alex looked at her, ageless sorrow in his eyes, eyes that had seen far too much sadness and had actually believed for a short time that their pain was over.

“I know, baby,” Eliza murmured, her hand against his face, wanting to wring every second of contact she could get, hearing all the words that were crowding Alex’s fevered mind that not even the best poet of the modern age could understand, “I know.”

She would always know.

“I won’t r-really remember,” Alex struggled for breath, “It’ll just be…dreams…”

“Then let us be dreams,” Eliza whispered, the tears rising like an unstoppable force, “Life sucks. It fucking sucks. We were always too good for it anyway. I’ll be your dream instead.”

Alex’s expression broke into pure, broken glass sorrow, grief and anguish and every emotion that brought with it a rush of nausea and a wish to have never been alive to feel this kind of pain.

Eliza shook her head, not wanting their last moments together to be like this. But it seemed like she never got what she wanted, not really.

“The kids…” Alex wailed as she determinedly wrapped the broken seal skin around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Eliza whispered, her face contorted like a theatre mask.

Alex bowed his head, choking on the words he would say to his precious little ones if he had them in front of him now. But he knew in his torn, bleeding heart that he wouldn’t have even been able to look at them.

Some goodbyes were too painful.

“Tell them…tell them how much I-I…every day.”

“I will, I promise I will Alex.”

“Don’t let them forget- “

“I won’t, I won’t ever, how could they, they love you so much- “

“I’m so, so sorry- “

“Oh, Alex, no…”

“Please be strong, Betsey, for me. They need you.”

“I…I will. I don’t know how but…I will…”

The lines were blurring, Alex’s shape was twisting and warping as his voice grew somehow stronger and healthier but at the same time fell away into something unknowable, something that was no language of earth. Eliza squeezed her eyes shut, not just because she couldn’t bear to watch the light of her life be taken from her but because she knew somehow that she just wasn’t meant to see it.

“I love you, I love you so much, Eliza Hamilton, I love you.”

If Alex did have to choose words to be his last spoken as a human, those would do as good as any.

“I love you too, Alexander.  _ I love you…” _

Eliza didn’t know if he heard her, for when she opened her eyes there was nothing left of Alex but a piece of bloodied wood, a rusty stain that was slowly being claimed by the sea and, unnaturally cold in her palm, a silver sailboat on a chain.

All she could do, as she broke down and beat her fists against the sand and scraped her nails across her arms and screamed in grief until her voice was gone to the sea breeze, all she could do was pray that he heard her.

The world never did regain its colour. Not for Eliza.

-

It was a cold day, kind of a grim grey day. All the days felt like that since…since everything.

As Rachel carefully picked her way across the rocks, not really caring if where she put her feet was particularly stable, not caring if the path she chose got too precarious, if she went further than Mama and…Mama had never said she could before.

She was finding it hard to live around these pauses, to narrowly avoid and stumble over just like did with these boulders that fringed the beaches like some giant had just been wandering and had them tumble out of their pocket. Except more than a broken ankle or bruised knees were risked with the holes in their lives, the cavernous gaps where…

Rachel forced herself to think it. Where her father had been. Where he’d filled the fissures in their world before they’d even known they were there, carrying them and warming them and looking over them.

Even though it stung, even though it sparked a deep and dizzying hurt, Rachel stopped right on the apex of the biggest boulder and thought of her father. Of his smile that made a shy, nervous little girl believe everything was going to be okay. Of his voice, animated and not too low, dipping and soaring with life and energy when he spoke, when he sang, when he picked her up and swung her around and made stories for her. Of his soft hair that would fall within her reach and she’d get to hold onto it and wind it through her fingers, of the way his eyes glittered when he had a joke or good idea, of the way she would always believe him when he rubbed the tip of his nose against hers and tell her she was his mija, his beautiful girl and he would love her forever and ever.

But then he went away. Or rather, she made him go away.

Rachel took a deep breath and continued on her way along the rocks, taking a fierce kind of pride in going where she wasn’t supposed to go, of breaking the rules. She just needed to put distance between her and that house, that cottage that was missing one of its beams. Pretty soon they would all just crumble under their own grief and slide into the sea.

Philip was burying his grief and guilt in trying to take care of everyone else. Theo was trying to pull him back to himself and meeting only iron resistance. Angie wasn’t coming out of her room. AJ was angry all the time, like if he only broke enough things and tore enough books, he could turn everything back to normal. They all knew he broke down in sobs once he was behind closed doors and in Eli’s arms. Jamie didn’t sleep, he turned his music up too loud and hid from what would rise up when he closed his eyes and was left at the mercy of his own thoughts. Johnny, Johnny who hadn’t stopped talking ever since he’d first reached up out of his crib towards his father’s face and happily yelped, “Dada!”, he hadn’t said a single word in days, like they’d buried his voice box along with that sailboat necklace. Will searched for a narrow, slight face with a charmingly scruffy goatee and an easy smile and a tangle of dark hair in every crowd, in every room, like it would just be a matter of time before he found it again because surely this just couldn’t be how things ended up. Liza was half wild, refusing to do anything, to eat, to sit still, to go to bed, to wake up like there just wasn’t any point to anything at all.

And her Mama. Her poor, desperately brave Mama, taking every step forward like it broke her heart all over again but taking it nonetheless. All because she’d promised him she would, finding little ways to just pull herself along that little inch more even though there wouldn’t be anything better on the horizon, folding his old, unfinished poems into paper cranes, wearing his jumpers to sleep in, going to see a councillor on Auntie Angelica’s recommendation. Sobbing into her pillow on a night when she thought her little ones wouldn’t hear.

And Rachel just went for her long walks along the rocks.

What else was there to do?

She had his coat on, his old grey fleece that he’d loved to wear on cold days like this and still smelled a little like him in a way that comforted and hurt in nearly equal measures. It was necessary, that storm seemed to have taken the whole concept of summer away with it, as well as just their happiness. It came down to Rachel’s knees like an oversize dress. She was older now, in more ways than just age, but she was still small. Still the baby.

Really, she should be frightened into a statue by the mere sight of the sea, after everything that happened to her. She’d have every right to be, Rachel realised, as she felt the sea spray on her face.

But then that would be like letting it all win.

She kept on going, aimless, wandering, like a little lost soul on the shore, a ghost. Something out of a story her Pops might have made up for her on a stormy night. So, lost in her own mind, Rachel barely noticed the spray getting stronger, the roar of the waves breaking and dying their deaths on the sea wall getting louder, the water line getting nearer until it was just a little too late. Her sneaker slipped on the slick rock, suddenly there was nothing underneath it at all and that’s when she began to fall, fall towards the churning foam, she didn’t have time to be scared-

And then something firm, something powerful was nudging her back and she was sprawling on the pebbles, out of harm’s way but very confused.

Rachel blinked, looking at the frankly unbelievable sight in front of her but choosing to believe it anyway with a five-year-old’s calm acceptance.

“Oh. Hey there,” she murmured, finding the odd intelligence in the seal’s black onyx eyes amusing, “Thanks.”

She got no reply, of course. The sleek, dark animal disappeared back into the water but it stayed circling the little reef Rachel was walking along, almost like it was showing off, trying to catch her attention as she leaned her front against the damp rock and dangled her arms over the edge to watch.

He moved so cleanly, more like flying than anything else, anything as mundane as swimming. The sunlight, even muffled by the water, caught on his dark, black but not quite, fur, showing the patches of blue and deep green and purple that were hidden in it. Rachel found herself smiling in a way she hadn’t done for so, so long as her fingertips stirred the surface of the inky water, watching the seal dive down into the caverns and mazes underneath her that she could never hope to reach. Every so often, the animal would resurface, bump his nose against her curious fingers, get a look in the black moons of his eyes that was too human. Too…familiar.

Something angry and jagged in her soul was soothed by that hour she spent playing with the seal, replaced by an urge that tugged at the pit of her stomach, a nostalgic longing that wasn’t as painful as the grief. It could be handled and carried without risking lacerated palms and a broken heart.

Rachel couldn’t even find it in her to be sad when she heard Philip’s voice calling her name from down the beach, calling her home, calling her back to reality, looked up in recognition and glanced back down to see the seal gone like it had never been there. As she got to her feet and began the journey back, there was a new sensation in her heart. Something healed. A loss with its raw edges cauterized. A comforting hand on her shoulder that would always be there whether the person attached to it was or not.

A sense that everything was going to be okay.

They would all see that seal, all be mesmerised by its bright eyes and comforting easiness, the familiar look in its narrow face. They wouldn’t talk about it, they’d never say it to each other. But something would spark in their chests whenever they noticed it again, out in the bay like it was keeping watch, forgetting in the gaps between each sighting, not noticing that in the years that went by, he should have moved on long ago.

But he stayed. He stayed and he kept his guard.

-

The people in the village, even when those who’d come before had stopped their talking and been replaced by new voices, new faces, new favourite seats in the bar, they admired the slightly odd, slightly lonely but respected Mrs. Hamilton. Some had been taught by her, some had attended the elementary school in the years she’d been headmistress, some were young enough that they only knew her as the elderly woman with tired eyes and a wry smile who went walking all along, who sat at the end of the pier near her home and looked out across the water for hours. Whose neatly painted lips seemed to move like she was talking to someone who wasn’t there.

Her many children were a memory, all of them moved away and seen only on holidays or on odd weekends, the grip of the town apparently only having it’s claws in their mother, her sisters who would sweep into town on city air were an oddity talked about in the past tense, her father and mother recognised by the few who regularly read the national newspapers were ancient history.

And the man who’d walked beside her. The man who’d kissed her cheek and pushed her hair back from her face on windy days and danced lazily with her down the street when the playful mood took them, who’d unnerved and startled and bemused them all.

He was legend.

And in time, once far, far too many years had gone by, Eliza would be one too.

-

Eliza Hamilton was so, so tired.

She’d come so far, seen so much, enough that it had started feeling unfair a good while back.

But now she could finally take a deep, last lungful of air, close her eyes and let go. Whatever happened, she just didn’t care anymore, she had just had enough.

…

What Eliza didn’t expect was to open her eyes again half a second later.

Much less to see pale, warm light dappled through water from a source in another world that she couldn’t see. The tips of seaweed fronds swaying gently in an underwater breeze but not the roots, the roots were somewhere either side of her head. Murmurings from faraway in her ears, whispers of a song, so strong and resonating so deeply she could see them moving past in the eddies, the colours that moved by her eyes.

She went to breathe but she didn’t need to. She wasn’t scared. She felt alive.

And then there was a voice. A voice she’d been aching to hear for far too long, a voice she didn’t just hear in her ears but in her bones, in her chest, in her blood, in her heart.

_ “I missed you, Betsey…” _

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so its finally done! Thanks so much for all the support and kind comments and for loving what I do. This was the largest and most complex fic I've ever attempted and it couldn't have gone better, largely thanks to all your support. 
> 
> I have a Tumblr, @my-dearesteliza and a ko-fi if you want to show some support! xx

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr, @quantum-oddity


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